‘My monument to humankind’: Earth, but not as you know it – in pictures

Trent Parke’s atmospheric images of commuters in Sydney have an other-worldly quality, as if he is photographing a newly discovered species

Main image: ‘I was fascinated by the sheer volume of people’ … Street corner, Sydney, Australia

  • When Trent Parke moved to Sydney from the outskirts of a small Australian town, his first impression was of the sheer volume of people. He would grab his camera and go out exploring. ‘Monument is a book that’s been building for over 25 years. The photographs date back to some of the first street photographs I took when I first moved to Sydney. The book is not a retrospective but a single filmic narrative completely devoid of language, in which the Earth is approached from space.’ All photos by Trent Parke/Chilli Octopus/Magnum Photos. Monument is available to purchase from Stanley Barker books
    ‘Monument is a book thats been building for me for over twenty five years. The photographs date back to some of the first street photographs i took when i first moved to the city of Sydney and continued right up until the book was published in 2023. The book is not a retrospective but a single filmic narrative completely devoid of language, in which the earth is approached from space.’Monument is available to purchase from Stanley Barker books here

  • ‘I always use music to set the tone for the mood of the book I am making and, for me, its always a film before it’s a book. Therefore I need a soundtrack to storyboard the idea, sequence the work and create the narrative. In this case I used two scores from Max Richter’s Hostiles album: The Lord’s Rough Ways and Never Goodbye’
    ‘I always use music to set the tone for the mood of the book i am making and for me its always a film before its a book.Therefore i need a soundtrack to storyboard the idea, sequence the work and create the narrative. In this case i used two scores from Max Ritchers Hostiles album. The Lord’s Rough Ways, and Never Goodbye.’

  • ‘By chance this music happened to be playing in the background on a streaming service when I first started scanning and editing the thousands of negatives for this book before the initial first cut. I knew straight away that was the feeling I was looking for and what I had been searching for since I first started taking these pictures. I wanted something that started off very simple but had that feeling of melancholy, before spiralling out of control, to eventually end up the same way that it started. The human race as a blip in the life of the universe spanning the dawn of time’
    ‘By chance this music happened to be playing in the background on a streaming service when i first started scanning and editing the thousands of negatives for this book before the initial first cut. I knew straight away that was the feeling i looking for and what i had been searching for since i first started taking these pictures. I wanted something that started off very simple but had that feeling of melancholy, before spiralling out of control, to eventually end up the same way that it started. The human race as a blip in the life of the universe spanning the dawn of time.’

  • ‘When I first moved to the big city of Sydney, my first impression was the sheer volume of people and the endless procession of city workers making their way to and from it. I would grab the camera and go out exploring at every opportunity. Having come straight from a country town, I was completely fascinated by it. Like watching a newly discovered species’
    ‘When I first moved to the big city of Sydney, my first real impression was the sheer volume of people and the endless procession of city workers making their way to and from it. I would grab the camera and go out exploring at every opportunity. Having grown up on the outskirts of small town suburbia and having come straight from a country town, I was completely fascinated by it. Like watching a newly discovered species.’

  • ‘Initially I photographed a lot at night, and in the dimly lit underground subway stations. I would watch and wait, moving with the rush as it slowly gathered momentum along the train stations and bus stops, drawing closer to the city centre. There seemed a sort of inevitability to it all, a continual cycle, as if this ritual had been taking place for ever’
    ‘Initially i photographed a lot at night, and in the dimly lit underground subway stations.I would watch and wait, moving with the rush as it slowly gathered momentum along the train stations and bus stops, drawing closer to the city centre.And with it, my adrenaline, eventually overflowing like the underground train platforms, and ticket gates, before spilling out onto the street, the bright sunlight, and the 9am criss cross of everywhere …There seemed a sort of inevitability to it all, a continual cycle, as if this ritual had been taking place for ever.’

  • ‘The more I photographed the rush hour, the more I became drawn to the blinding Sydney sun. I began circling the city, over and over, week after week, year after year. It was like a drug. Always chasing the light as it moved from street corner to street corner, trying to make sense of what everything meant and the continual endless struggle’
    ‘The more I photographed the rush hour the more I became drawn to the blinding Sydney sun. I began circling the city, over and over, week after week, year after year. It was like a drug. Always chasing the light as it moved from street corner to street corner.T rying to make sense of what everything meant and the continual endless struggle.’

  • ‘Even though I essentially photograph in a documentary style, and it’s important to me that I still hold to the values of the medium. It’s important because that’s what excites me about photography. The ability to capture a moment and a time that is gone forever’
    ‘Even though I essentially photograph in a documentary style, and its important to me that I still hold true to the values of the medium, my photographs usually end up in a different context to the actual moment captured. Its important because thats what excites me about photography. The ability to capture a moment and a time that is gone forever.’

  • ‘I have always wanted my work to comment on what it was like to live during my life. What the world around me looked like or felt like at that period in time. But I am always looking for images that also transcend the moment, and narratives that can be viewed from a universal point of view. Photographs that can fit into a much bigger story that I am trying to tell’
    ‘I have always wanted my work to comment on what it was like to live during my life. What the world around me looked like or felt like at that period in time. But I am always looking for images that also transcend the actual moment, and narratives that can be viewed from a universal point of view. Photographs that can fit into a much bigger story that i am trying to tell.’

  • ‘In Adelaide many years later I started shooting time exposures of crowds of pedestrians on 35mm black and white film. When processing my film, I used a very long development time to enhance the sharpness and size of the grain. Looking at the negatives under the loop, I started to blow tiny proportions up to extreme enlargements. For almost a year I then stood on the same street corner every day in the evening rush’
    ‘In Adelaide many years later I started shooting time exposures of crowds of pedestrians on 35mm b&w film. When processing my film, I use a very long development time to enhance the sharpness and size of the grain.Looking at the negs under the loop, i started to blow tiny proportions of the negatives up to extreme enlargements. For almost a year I then stood on the same street corner every day in the evening rush.’

  • ‘It was like putting people under a microscope and seeing them at the level of grain and matter. Its about how a fleeting moment on a street corner could be symbolic of the transience of a single human life. We are here one minute, gone the next. Human existence like the “speck on a clover”, to use a line from Dr Seuss. The micro and the macro in the vast space of the universe and how in the end we are all just particles and dust’
    ‘It was like putting people under a microscope and seeing them at the level of grain and matter. Its about how a fleeting moment on a street corner could be symbolic of the transience of a single human life. We are here one minute, gone the next. Human existence like the speck on a clover to use a line from Dr Seuss – who I have always been a big fan of. The micro and the macro in the vast space of the universe and how in the end we are all just particles and dust.’

  • ‘Ever since the night my mum died suddenly from an asthma attack when I was 13 years old, the concept of time has never left me. That along with the inevitability that everything must eventually die. As a result, I have lived my life by that tick tock of the clock. Never waste a day as it might be your last. Question everything. Why are we here, where are we going and what happens next?’
    ‘Ever since the night my mum died suddenly from an asthma attack when I was thirteen years old, the concept of time has never left me. That along with the inevitability that everything must eventually die. As a result, I have lived my life by that tick tock of the clock. Always racing against it – never waste a day as it might be your last. Question everything. Why are we here, where are we going and what happens next.’

  • ‘The book is inspired by the Golden Record that accompanied Nasa’s Voyager spacecraft in 1977. The 12-inch gold-plated copper disk contains selected photographs and sounds to communicate a story of our world to any intelligent extra terrestrial lifeforms who may one day discover it. This book is my record, my time capsule of what it was like to live during my lifetime. This is my “monument” of humankind’
    ‘The cover of the book is a take on the Golden Record that accompanied NASAs Voyager spacecraft in 1977. The 12-inch gold - plated copper disk contains selected photographs and sounds to communicate a story of our world to any intelligent extra terrestrial life forms who may one day discover it. This book is my record, my time capsule of what it was life to live during my life time. This is my ‘Monument’ of Human kind.’
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