Framed by love: star photography couple share secret of getting the perfect shot
In a world where images are captured at the blink of an eye, what possesses two artists to spend hours, months – even years – to get the perfect shot?
It was a love story forged at first sight in the newsroom of The Australian. When photographers Trent Parke and Narelle Autio locked eyes across the processing room, the moment would spark a romantic and a creative partnership that has spanned numerous years, awards and accolades.
Known for their kaleidoscopic abstractions of everyday life, with moments as simple as a dip at sunset captured amid an illuminating palette of orange hues, the decorated artists headline Powerhouse’s 2024 Photofields festival, revealing the processes behind their seemingly effortless shots.
Based in Adelaide for the past 13 years, the pair’s return to Sydney coincides with the announcement of their first collaborative commission since 2017, which is set to launch for the opening of Powerhouse Parramatta in late 2026. “We work like scientists in the way that we’re always trying to make discoveries,” Autio, the foremost Australian recipient of the international Leica Oskar Barnack Award, tells The Australian.
“Taking something that the average person looks at constantly we always think, how do we do it differently? How do we show something that’s been seen a million times?” she adds.
While the theme of their hotly anticipated collaboration remains under wraps, Parke, the country’s sole Magnum Photographer, notes “so much of our work takes years to develop, it’s almost impossible to confirm what it’ll be about.”
Much like their romance, their artistic expression occurs naturally, at times almost by chance. Their previous project – The Summation of Force – an artistic exploration of backyard cricket spliced amid the high octane pressures of professional sportsmanship, began with iPhone shots of their children playing around in the family home.
Spiralling into three years of intricate shooting, buckets of dry ice comprising their “visual effects” department and over $1500 in fairy lights rigged across the family’s garden, Parke recalls taking 10 hours to achieve a single shot of a coin toss falling perfectly into place.
“You know, once we get hold of an idea, it’s impossible to stop,” he laughs, adding “we’re not relying on million-dollar special effects, it’s just a really simple process that takes a long time.”
The result was a paean to youthful determination, a monochromatic film so accessible in its avant-garde nature that even the most apathetic to the beloved Australian summer sport pauses to witness their carefully choreographed production.
The epic installation that launched that year’s Adelaide Film Festival ended up at Sundance, with Parke and Autio brushing shoulders with Hollywood heavyweight Robert Redford at his winter lodge in Utah.
In an age saturated by images, and lens-based media centred on brevity and instant gratification, one ponders what motivates the duo to engage in the volatile artistic process.
Autio has a simple answer, “I’m photographing my actual life.”
“I can’t see any joy sitting at a computer recreating that, I can’t even contemplate it – looking at the real things we experience, the atmosphere, the environment it’s always about evoking our emotions.”
“That’s what’s exciting – that chase is sort of like a drug in a way,” Parke echoes.