Transcript (Unedited)
Tom Heath
All right. Welcome back to another installment of Meet the Artist, the production of the tucson Gallery. Here in downtown tucson, 300 East Congress. We have these weekly events. We’re bringing one of our talented local artists to share their insights and their knowledge with our adoring fans. And then right before each of these presentations, before it gets a little too crazy, we record this podcast. You can find out all of these podcasts more about each one of our artists. You can find their merchandise, things we have available from them in the gallery, and also reproductions on our website. TheTucsonGallery.com invite you to check that out and also sign up for the newsletter to get all of the events. Because it’s not just these live artist events. We also have wine tastings and music and all kinds of good stuff happening down here inside of the proper shops. And today we are blessed with the presence of, I’m going to say internationally renowned. He’s like, yeah, of course. Sean Parker, photographer extraordinaire. And welcome to the show.
Sean Parker
Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here, and this podcast is a nice addition. So I’m excited to talk about my work and get some people down here and inspire, maybe.
Tom Heath
All right, well, that’s a big tall order. We got like, 15 minutes, so we better get hustle. Let’s talk a little about you. So we focus on tucson artists. But you are not a tucson native.
Sean Parker
I’m not a native, no. I’ve been here for about a third of my life. I grew up in a little town called Parker, Arizona, right out right on the Colorado River near Lake havasu. I spent about eleven years of my life there. Then I moved to prescott, where I spent about another twelve or 13 years and went to high school, some college there, and then moved to tucson in 2009 or something like that.
Tom Heath
What brought you down here?
Sean Parker
Opportunity. So, growing up, I’ve always been a huge nerd, like video games, computers, and I started to get really into computer repair and networking and stuff like that. So I basically moved away from prescott because there’s not a lot of jobs up there for me up there. And I came down here, went to well, I originally wanted to go to itt Tech, but I didn’t go because I found a good computer job here. And so I ended up staying here and just doing the whole experience route and getting my certificates and all that, and then found my passion for photography about ten years ago.
Tom Heath
How did that transpire were you like an amateur photographer taking things on your phone? You’re like, I’m pretty good at this, or did you just go full board and start with the equipment?
Sean Parker
It’s kind of funny. Kind of looking back at my teens and my young adult life, I noticed that I was always taking pictures with my phone, like all my travels or my hiking trips with friends or just scenic stuff, and I didn’t really connect that. I had a hobby for it or an eye for it until I started taking pictures of space through a telescope at skybar. So my journey into this is a little bit different.
Tom Heath
Nice. I like that.
Sean Parker
Yeah. So basically I’ve always been what do you call it, passionate about the night sky. I’ve always enjoyed hubble’s imagery, and at skyboard they have a telescope out there, and the shot number at the time had photos displaying on this TV out on the back patio, and I was like, Those are some great hubble images. He’s like, no, those are actually my images I took through this telescope at this bar. I’m like what? Really?
Tom Heath
Your jaw just sort of dropped?
Sean Parker
Yeah, I was a little starstruck, to say the least.
Tom Heath
No pun intended, no pun intended.
Sean Parker
And basically I just started coming hanging out with him a lot and taking pictures with my iPhone of the moon and stuff like that.
Tom Heath
And how old were you at this point?
Sean Parker
Oh, man, this was like ten years ago, so I’m 35 now. So I was about 25, 26, and basically just borrowed my friend jordan’s camera for like six months before I popped my own and started taking pictures with him at his observatory outside of town and just getting into it. And then I got just really full blown into it, just nonstop, like late nights, coming into work late, and it changed my life.
Tom Heath
Well, the two things that you are known for, I’m assuming you do a lot of photography. Two things you know for are headshots and wedding photos. No, no, I’m just joking.
Sean Parker
Unless there’s a milky Way behind them.
Tom Heath
No, it’s the it’s that that galactic experience, but it’s also you do really good nature, like desert landscapes and things of that nature. It’s like two different opposite spectrum.
Sean Parker
Yeah. So basically when I first started, I started taking pictures of just the sky only, and then I started seeing some nice landscape with the night sky photos coming out. And this was like right when cameras were actually able cameras were actually able to perform this kind of technique because the high iso, low light performance on some of these cameras when I was just getting into it, was barely usable, so I kind of got in it at a good time. And I’ve always been a nature guy, so I was able to really capture the night sky plus landscapes, because once you shoot like a nebula for a while, there’s nothing really changes except camera equipment. So I was just full blown into nature, getting the milky Way core over a cactus or something like that, and then I just realized I just love shooting everything and challenging myself. And I started shooting like, lightning and storms and then sunsets.
Tom Heath
Yeah, your lightning photos are just phenomenal. We have people that come in the gallery and they see your photos, and they don’t realize it’s an actual photo. They think it’s like a painting or something like that. How do you capture how do you capture that? Because is it just timing, or do you have this sense? Like, does your hair stand up with a lightning strike?
Sean Parker
Well, it stands up because I get excited, but not because I’m getting too close to the lightning. But I just love shooting things that exhilarate me and that adrenaline pumping. I’ve seen the milky Way over something, or the lightning over at the city, or a suarez. Just fun to chase. And I like the challenge. So once I started getting into that kind of photography, I just started researching and becoming pretty knowledgeable in weather and patterns and the doppler radar and stuff like that, so I know how to position myself and get that shot.
Tom Heath
Heaven. How long do you have to sit out there? Like you said, the universe doesn’t necessarily change, and the cactus isn’t moving. How do you get out there and how long are you out there to photograph for?
Sean Parker
Hours. Yeah, I mean, sometimes I’ll get up in the morning and chase all day, but a lot of the storms don’t develop until late afternoon, so I’m usually out there from two until midnight sometimes, because sometimes these storms take me all the way to yuma or down to nogales.
Tom Heath
So you’re actually physically you’re in a car chasing that storm.
Sean Parker
Oh, yeah. It’s like that movie twister.
Tom Heath
Okay.
Sean Parker
Yeah.
Tom Heath
I thought maybe you would set up an area and then let the storm come to you.
Sean Parker
Well, sometimes I can predict that depending on how accurate the radars are. So I’ll actually be like, oh, there’s going to be a storm cell developing over wilcox at around 02:00. So I’ll drive out to wilcox and just wait for it and then just go from there.
Tom Heath
When we first met, as we were opening the gallery, like in, I think, October or November, you were doing a lot of traveling because you were getting photographs of lights. That was in Norway.
Sean Parker
Icelandis. Northern lights. Yeah.
Tom Heath
Was that your first time doing that?
Sean Parker
No, that was my 12th time.
Tom Heath
Oh, my gosh.
Sean Parker
Yeah. So I’ve been going out there almost two or three times a year for the last six years. Yeah.
Tom Heath
And what draws you there?
Sean Parker
The stark beauty, of course, and just the dramatic landscapes and the northern lights. LG hired me in 2016 to go film the Northern Lights for their tvs. When you go to Best Buy, you see those screen savers on the tvs. So they hired me to go out there and film for their new oled television that was coming out in 2016 and changed my life. I mean, I was, like, ecstatic because I was kind of, like, under the radar a little bit. Like it was just becoming popular, and I was like, I want to go there. That’s so pretty. And I want to shoot the northern lights. And I saw the northern lights on the plane ride over, and I was just losing my mind. Just sitting on there and looking out the window and just seeing these green slithering lights going across the sky and yeah. So now I go out there and I lead photography workshops and tours out there, chasing the northern lights and the sunsets and basically the beauty of iceland.
Tom Heath
That kind of leads me into my next sort of question line here. So you’re helping others kind of find their path. Someone got you involved and now you’re helping others.
Sean Parker
Oh, yeah, basically just passing it on, paying it forward. So I do a lot of educational workshops, so I’ll take groups out to the desert and teach them how to photograph the night sky over, like, swara National Park and stuff, and just basically sharing ten years of knowledge in a two night course or one night, depending on what I do. But yeah, it’s awesome. I love it.
Tom Heath
It’s ten years, and I know that’s a long time, especially when you’re 35, but you’ve also packed so much into that because you’re in magazines, you’re in commercials, you’ve got awards. It’s not like I’ve just been taking photographs for ten years. You’ve been taking high quality, highly recognized photos.
Sean Parker
That’s the beginning. Yeah, I mean, I would say, like, my first publication was just, like, six months after I started in smithsonian Air and Space magazine. So that was a huge kick to keep trying to feel.
Tom Heath
When you were when you opened that up and you saw your stuff, that’s pretty awesome.
Sean Parker
I don’t think I even asked for money. I just gave them the photo because I didn’t know better. But I was just like, Holy crap, I’m in a magazine. Mom, like, look at this.
Tom Heath
Someone getting involved. You clearly found a passion. A couple of things you mentioned have changed your life, but someone that might have that knack for taking photos on their phone and kind of, what are those next steps before they do start spending? Because your equipment is not inexpensive.
Sean Parker
No, it’s not, and it never was from the beginning. I’ve always had pretty good stuff, and I highly recommend anyone who’s getting into it is to use what you have access to. Don’t spend a lot of money at first. The trick is finding your eye, finding your passion within photography and your subject matter. And there’s a lot of pressure on social media to kind of like what’s trending, what’s popular, what sells, what doesn’t. So I highly recommend stay away from that. Just find what you’re passionate about, because as long as you love it, I’m sure other people will follow along. And patience is like, the biggest thing you can have with photography is build your following, build your business, build your eye, build your equipment so that doesn’t happen overnight.
Tom Heath
Yeah, you talk about getting in the smithsonian magazine after six months, but that was after years of working. Prior to that, it was six months once you became serious about it.
Sean Parker
No, it was six months once I started posting on Facebook. But like I said, I got in it at a good time when no one was really doing it, so I kind of got known for it at a good time.
Tom Heath
So this was kind of before your sky bar days?
Sean Parker
Yeah. No, so skybar I started, and then six months after skybar I started.
Tom Heath
Yeah. And you’d kind of been doing things prior to that. You’ve been sort of finding yourself prior to that, which is, I think, what you’re selling to people, it’s not a problem if what you like isn’t what other people necessarily like, because if you photograph it well, other people are going to really enjoy it.
Sean Parker
Yeah, and that’s what I’m saying. Just do what you like to shoot, or shoot what you like to shoot, not what other people are expecting from you and stuff like that. That’s why I don’t do headshots or do commercial weddings. weddings? I mean, I’ll do weddings for friends or friends, but it’s not what I’m passionate about.
Tom Heath
Do you find in the photography world, do people then really specialize in a couple of areas, or is that more unique for you?
Sean Parker
I mean, I’m a firm believer of being good at multiple things. That’s why in photography, I don’t stick just to milky Way photos, I do other subjects. So it definitely does help you in the end because you can just problem solve a lot quicker and make it work. But I just recommend just first finding what you’re passionate about and focus on that one subject, which was astrophotography for me, and then I moved on to bigger things once I mastered that.
Tom Heath
Okay. And then from kind of an artistic standpoint, you come with an interesting background because you come from the science and computer world, but you’re also a musician, and both sides of your brain are always working.
Sean Parker
Yeah, pretty much.
Tom Heath
That’s got to be an interesting way to help kind of identify what you’re going to be shooting.
Sean Parker
Absolutely. I mean, there’s a lot of equations in photography as far as the aperture, like the exposure, triangles, what they call it. It’s like your exposure, your shutter speed and your aperture, and they all work within each other. And so when you shoot at a slow shutter speed, you got to adjust your aperture and all that. So that definitely helped me. Even though I hate math, I’m not the greatest at it. It just works in my head. I know that if I change the setting, this setting also has to change. And growing up, I actually helped my dad find his first digital camera, which is like a three megapixel hp boat in the hand because I’ve always had an electronic background. Electronics came, and they still do come easy to me.
Tom Heath
Does the musician play into it. Does that give you the little bit.
Sean Parker
Of math in there? Yeah, but I think that inspired my creative side more than my technical side.
Tom Heath
Yeah. And I don’t know this world, so forgive me if it’s an ignorant question, but do you do filtering and photo correction?
Sean Parker
I would say photo editing is half the battle in photography. So getting the image right in camera is the first step, and then second step is polishing that image. But I don’t do any fake imagery. I don’t do what a lot of people do is like composite the sky from a different day on top of their shot to make it more epic or dramatic. I don’t do that. So I think that’s what also helps me stand apart from these other photographers that are kind of famous because they do a lot of manipulation and I don’t I just had contrast saturation, stuff like that.
Tom Heath
And when you’re doing when you’re doing that editing, are you trying to recreate what you saw and how you saw it, or are you trying to create something different?
Sean Parker
More a little bit of both. Yeah, I would say it’s a little bit of both. Obviously, the cameras can’t capture what our eyes can see, but I try to do it as close as possible without overdoing it. I like to keep it very subtle because I think that’s just my style. A lot of people like making it more dramatic than it actually is just for the appeal of it, and good for them. But I try to recreate what I see without overdoing it.
Tom Heath
Okay. I get that sense when I look at your pictures. I feel like I’m seeing what you saw when you took that picture. When I look at other photography that I really like, I’m getting a sense of this is more of a compositor or almost like a production generated.
Sean Parker
Yeah.
Tom Heath
So I definitely can see that in the way that you work. Your snowfall with your sorrows is really popular here when people get that imagery.
Sean Parker
Well, I got some photos here, some prints of the snow. All right. Some recent prints, too.
Tom Heath
So speaking of that, you can find Mr. parker’s work. We’ve got some fabulous reproductions available on our website, the Tucsongallery.com. You can come in and check it out. You can just Google his name and you’re going to find him all over the Internet. He’s got stuff everywhere. I guess this might be not enough time to really talk about this, but within the last six months, this explosion of AI and how do you see that? Or does that help hurt? Does that impact you?
Sean Parker
It definitely hurts, but it also helps inspire me to actually get to that one location or somewhere location and capture that without having any computer generation in it. I think it’s going to be like, I’ve seen this from the get go. compositing images wasn’t as popular as it was in the last five years. So I’ve seen the stages of real, straight out of camera photography going into complete creative compository to now being composed by AI. And it’s only been hurtful for artists like myself who try to keep it natural and true. I’m for AI. And I’m for compository, as long as it’s somewhat stated and not misrepresented. misrepresented, yeah. Because some artists will say they’ll come up with a story behind this fake image, and I just don’t find that very authentic. And I’ve seen it already with the AI popping like some I can’t even tell it’s fake. It’s like, so accurate. There’s reflections, the light hitting the tips of the mountains. It’s so perfect that it scares me because it’s like, what
Sean Parker
if I took a real image? This person’s going to make a million dollars off it. And I’m not. Which it’s not about the money, of course, but for someone like me who survives on their art, AI can definitely.
Tom Heath
Be trouble, I would imagine. If someone says, I want a photo of snow covered suarez, the algorithm is going to go out and look for.
Sean Parker
Source photos, like of my work.
Tom Heath
So have you seen anything that might be a composite of your stuff at this point?
Sean Parker
Not yet.
Tom Heath
Just a matter of time.
Sean Parker
A matter of time. And there’s actually going to be reverse lookups. And I think there’s going to be some laws pertaining to this that will say this image has to be sourced to the original artists because it’s definitely a huge copyright infringement.
Tom Heath
Yeah, I know there’s some national lawsuits that are against, like, photo storage sites that have then allowed these AI companies to come in and mine their source. I guess we’re a little far afield on this conversation.
Sean Parker
We just touched on it. That’s all we need to do.
Tom Heath
That’s fine, but I hope you have a chance. Do you have any workshops coming up people can sign up for? And how do they find out more information?
Sean Parker
So on my website, if you go to www.seanparker.com and go to the workshop tab, I have information in my schedule and I’m always coming up with new classes. My next one is in Phoenix. Not this weekend, but next. And I actually have one spot that just opened. Someone had to cancel, unfortunately. But it’s a two night workshop in Phoenix. And we go out, shoot all night and then we edit the next day. It’s just fun. Trip up in the superstitions.
Tom Heath
What’s your social media so people can follow you if they’re not?
Sean Parker
It’s at Sean Parker Photography. S-E-A-N parker Photography.
Tom Heath
All one word, and that’s Instagram and Facebook, everything.
Sean Parker
Twitter? I don’t think the Twitter has photography. It’s just photo. But just search Sean Parker Photo and everything and you’ll find me.
Tom Heath
All right, well, Sean Parker another one of these talented artists from tucson. As we get more deep into these conversations with artists in the gallery, I personally am impressed with the talent in tucson. We continue to see just tremendous people coming forward that have been working for years.
Sean Parker
And I just look around us, we’re surrounded by some amazing artists. I just walked in here and the first thing I said was like, wow, I can’t believe how much beauty is just inside this gallery.
Tom Heath
We are lucky in tucson and that’s the mission of the gallery is to help make the world aware of the talent we have here in tucson. If you want to learn more, head over to our website, the Tucsongallery.com. You can check out our live events. Every week we have a different artist coming in to talk about their styles. We have sculptures, acrylic, we have painters, photographers, we have people that work with stone, steel. It’s really a wide selection there and we invite you to check it out and come down and meet them live and have a cocktail and maybe learn a little bit about what they do and ask the questions. And most of them pretty willing to assign something if you got some of their work. John, I really appreciate your time, appreciate your view in our community and I appreciate the beauty you bring to this world.
Sean Parker
Thank you. I really appreciate that.
Speaker 3
Thank you for listening to Meet the Artist. This is a weekly production by the tucson Gallery located inside of the proper shops at 300 East conga Street in tucson, Arizona. The mission of the tucson Gallery is to support local artists by providing a space to show their art, a forum to engage with their audience, a virtual presence to connect with global patrons, an outlet to earn a fair price and an opportunity to hone their business skills. Head over to thetussandgallery.com for more information about our live events, listen to other Meet The Artist podcasts and check out the wide selection of art gifts and other items created by tucson’s modern, thought provoking and forward thinking artists.