STORYTELLING THOUGH
JONATHAN PARKER’S LENS
For Jonathan Parker, a Biochemistry major in the Honors Program, photography is a medium for being present and building community. Jonathan only began taking photos about two years ago on a trip with his family to California. Since then, he has only fallen more in love with the shooting and development processes. Beginning with capturing landscapes, Jonathan has continued to broaden his horizons with cityscapes, architecture, and the everyday person.
Jonathan’s distinctive photos are captured with a film camera, which allows the condition of the film to characterize the photos themselves. Additionally, the digital shooting experience of taking image after image in just a few seconds isn’t as exciting for Jonathan as capturing images with a film camera.
Working as an EMT while studying to be a doctor, Jonathan spends most of his time with people, both helping them and learning from them. Yet, until recently, community was something that eluded him throughout his life and his time in college. However, photography has been the means by which he builds community, using his gift both to serve his church and connect with people as he travels. Jonathan often takes trips across the country and around the world to engage with other photographers, and he has found much joy in the community he has found. He describes this gift of community as “such a blessing of being human.”
Jonathan believes that when he has a camera in his hands, he is more present in his surroundings than at any other time as he’s looking for “little pieces of experience.” On a recent trip to New York City, while waiting for the right person at the right moment, Jonathan saw individual people in a mass of humanity. He began to recognize the impact that picking up photography has had on the way he notices and cares for the people in the world around him.
Considering the cost of film rolls and development, film photography requires patience in waiting for the perfect image. For one of Jonathan’s cameras, “each time [he] hit[s] the shutter, it’s three dollars.” Because of this, Jonathan often sits for half an hour or more before the metaphorical stars align and “a person comes into a composition” that he likes. Finding where “architecture, symmetry, and light come together” is Jonathan’s particular philosophy for his photography.
The community that Jonathan has found as he captures different corners of the human experience has caused him to value the life of each person he comes into contact with. During his travels to Europe this summer, Jonathan plans to take portraits of people to “document and tell their stories.” Jonathan’s dream is to support himself financially with his medical career so that he can do photography as a pure hobby, even giving his prints away instead of selling them.
while waiting for the right person at the right moment, Jonathan saw individual people in a mass of humanity. He began to recognize the impact that picking up photography has had on the way he notices and cares for the people in the world around him.
One of the ways that Jonathan describes his experience with photography is restful– physically, emotionally, and spiritually. As much as Jonathan loves photography, he doesn’t want to do it professionally, as that would diminish the rest he finds in it.
Jonathan’s love for the world and for those who inhabit it is obvious in the pictures he takes. His ability to tell people’s stories in the images that he captures is admirable. This selfless approach to art and creativity is one that anyone who considers himself an artist can implement in his own craft.
