How To Please A Woman

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A gem of a film to watch and work on: How To Please A Woman with Sally Phillips as GINA, Caroline Brazier as SANDRA, Tasma Walton as MONIQUE, Hayley McElhinney as HAYLEY, Ryan Johnson as ANTHONY, Josh Thomson as BEN, Alex England as TOM & Erik Thomson as STEVE. Film by Renée Webster. Produced by Tania Chambers and Judi Levine – Stills by David Dare Parker
Sally Phillips as GINA, How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker
Alex England as TOM & Sally Phillips as GINA, How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker
Ryan Johnson as ANTHONY, Josh Thomson as BEN, Alex England as TOM & Erik Thomson as STEVE, How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker
Hayley McElhinney as HAYLEY, How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker
How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker
Caroline Brazier as SANDRA, Sally Phillips as GINA, Tasma Walton as MONIQUE & Hayley McElhinney as HAYLEY, How To Please A Woman – Photograph by David Dare Parker

The new Nikon Z 9 Flagship Mirrorless

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I am a Nikon Ambassador, so this is an unashamed plug for a company I have been brand loyal to since the very beginning. Mirrorless cameras have proved to be invaluable tools to me. Silence is golden on a film set. A professional version of my much loved Z6 and 7’s will be something will something special for sure:

Info as follows: We’re pleased to announce the development of the Nikon Z 9.

Scheduled for release in 2021, the Z 9 brings together ground-breaking technologies to deliver the best still and video performance in Nikon history, meeting the advanced needs of professionals across a wide range of genres.

Featuring a newly developed FX-format stacked CMOS sensor and new image-processing engine, Z 9 meets the growing needs of professionals, advanced enthusiasts and cinematographers with support for 8K video recording as well as various other video specifications that fulfil diverse needs and workflows.

The Z 9 embodies ultimate usability as a tool offering users an unprecedented imaging experience, from capture to workflow, exceeding that of previous digital-SLR and mirrorless cameras.

Be the first to know more by signing up at www.mynikonlife.com.au/z9

Information regarding the release of this product will be announced at a later date. The appearance of the camera may differ from the photo shown above.

David Dare Parker Collection Box Set

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David Dare Parker Collection Box Set

I have been a freelance photographer for over three decades. As a photographer I have been fortunate to have had two parallel careers. One as a photojournalist, the other as an on set photographer for film and television. I could not have done one without the other. Work is often sporadic, good months and bad. No sickness benefits. No holiday pay. No superannuation to speak of. This is not a complaint, as I have led an interesting life and every choice I have made has been my own. I have had the privilege of seeing and experiencing some extraordinary things.

Now, because of the recent crisis, things have pretty much come to a grinding halt. I have responsibilities, the same as all of us, and need to continue making a living (for the time being from home). I could start up a YouTube channel, attracting millions of followers, but feel I have a face for radio. Next best thing is to finally get around to selling signed archival prints. I have just updated my website – www.daviddareparker.com – and a large selection of my personal images will be available (with the exception of anything film industry related, for contractual reasons, or images that may be considered too sensitive to be sold as fine art prints).

And yet there is more.

In my Archive section is a gallery link to a box set I recently put together (link also at bottom of post). The David Dare Parker Collection (sounds lofty). The talented artisans at Fitzgerald Photo Imaging in Perth helped me put it together. Inside a cool monikered black box is a hand-bound booklet and six signed archival prints. It really does look beautiful (and expensive, but it isn’t – really). Click on the image at the top of the post and take a look.

David Dare Parker Collection Box Set Specs
Six Selected Signed Archival 29x36cm Images on
Hahnemuhle Photo Silk Baryta Fineart 310gsm Paper
Hand Bound Signed Information Booklet in an Embossed Case
Individual prints from my Archive are also available for purchase

The Box Set will sell for $990.00 AUD including GST

Individual 29x36cm Prints from my archive will sell for $150.00 unsigned and $180.00 signed AUD including GST Shipping not included

If interested please email me at: daviddareparker@bigpond.com for PayPal details

While in lock-down, put on some music and feel free to check out my site. If you see anything that might look good on your wall, get in touch and let me know. The World has changed. We need to adjust, find the silver lining and stay positive, smart and safe.

Email me at daviddareparker@bigpond.com for PayPal details.

All in it together, yours in isolation, David Dare Parker (DDP) Photographer

Ten Years a Nikon Ambassador

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Ten years ago today I was appointed one of seven Nikon Ambassadors. Happy tenth anniversary to my fellow Ambassadors Delly Carr Marcus Bell Rocco Ancora Mark Watson David Oliver and Jasin Boland. Since then we have been fortunate to welcome Kate Geraghty Kelly Tunney, Matt Smith and Vicki Pappas. My Nikons have never let me down, despite what I have put them through. Thank you Nikon Australia, you are family. Without you it would have been much more difficult to pursue the type of work I aspire to do. Thank you Kylie Dredge, Julie Kimpton, James Murray, Ross Hooper, Georgia Way, Craig Gillespie, Ben Halcomb, Jana Purkovic, John Young, Jeremy Brown, John Swainston and Chris Dalton.Rohingya_185

Synology DiskStation DS1019+

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DiskStation 01I first came across Synology at The Head On Photo Festival in Sydney two-years ago. The company had some of its products on display at the Festival hub. I am not exactly a tech head but what I saw peaked my interest. Classic me, when the Festival was over, I got busy working, and my mind drifted on to other things.

The following year I returned to Sydney as an exhibitor at the Festival. Coincidentally, a friend of mine, photographer Anthony McKee, gave a talk sponsored by Synology titled: ‘Protecting your work, digital filing & archiving, copyright and moral rights’ as a Head On event.

As part of Anthony’s talk, he described how he used Synology’s NAS System as a main part of his own workflow. In my mind, this is no small endorsement as I respect Anthony and value his opinion. The timing was perfect. Add to that, a chat with another friend and colleague, photographer Brian Cassey, who told me he also used the system, and once again I was interested.

In order to be totally transparent, Anthony mentioned that there was an initiative in place, during Head On, where if a photographer got in touch with the company and introduced him or her self, there was a chance a unit (sans hard drives) could be sent out for trial in exchange for an honest review. I did exactly that and was offered the chance to give the unit a go.

I was in search of the best possible method to preserve and safely archive my body of work. (I have been a working photographer for 35 years, and the risk of hard drive failure has long been a worry).

The Synology System’s RAID Solution means that even if a drive goes down, add another and the system weaves it’s magic with no data lost.

In other words: “In an appropriately configured RAID array, a single bad block on a single drive can be recovered completely via the redundancy encoded across the RAID set.” — Thank you Wikipedia.

I also wanted to create a secure service in order to upload and provide hi-res images to my clients – to ‘share’ quickly, from wherever I happen to have Internet access.

Synology’s customer service is solid, and looking into the kind of work I have done in the past Synology’s Tony Chu offered up some useful suggestions as to what would be of most use to me in regards to the machine itself and appropriate software.

Setting up the system is easy enough. Logging in via my MacBook Pro, I kept things simple by following the recommended prompts, one cautious step at a time. Once the drives were properly installed and shown to be ‘healthy’, I copied my work across from my external drives via USB and let the unit chug away slowly, and somewhat noisily, in the background.

Before:

Hard Drives A

As I chose to do it slowly, and steadily, it did take a few days for all the data to be copied and ‘converted’ (whatever that means). Once all tasks are completed the machine itself is quiet.

I have five bays, three loaded with WD Red NAS 8TB Drives. Most of the work I want to protect for now is there. I’ll no doubt need to add the other two drives when the time comes.

After:

Synology 1

For file sharing and remote access it was suggested I start with Synology’s Photo Station 6, a software package that automatically creates share folders and albums. Looking at Synology’s Package Center, there seems to be many options for many different uses. I am pretty much sticking to what I need for now, to avoid confusion. What I have in place now pretty much satisfies my workflow needs.

Photo Station 6

All in all, a NAS system is much like having your own personal cloud service that can be accessed from wherever and whenever you have access to the net. To be able to upload, download and share data remotely, from my very own, secure, server is a major plus. To know that if one drive fails, all I have to do is add another and all is as good as before — that’s a game changer for me.

At some stage I intend to have another system off site. It’s all still a work in progress. Backup, backup and backup!

This is the only NAS system I have had experience with. The DS1019+ is easy to set up. It provides me safe and secure access to my body of work — from any place I can be online. My decision to work with Synology was helped by the fact that they came highly recommended to me by two colleagues that I know and trust.

I am happy that my experience with the unit is a positive one.  The Synology DiskStation DS1019+ delivers peace of mind. It really is a great piece of kit.

 

WA Media Awards 2018

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WA Media Winners 2018

Winners of the 2018 WA Media Awards. Photo: Sachi Kotecha

Winner           Feature Photographic Essay      Sponsor               Media Super

David Dare Parker, Freelance: Exodus: Rohingya refugee crisis

Judges’ Comments

David Dare Parker’s “Rohingya refugees” is a standout above all others. David’s work amongst the Rohingya fleeing Myanmar is very much world class. A telling visual portrayal of the suffering of the Rohingya … and the aftermath of apparent attempted genocide.