UNFOLDING
What can be said about the parkour photograph? The action shot, like an epitaph, attempts to summarize something as large as life with the commerce of a single sentence. How can one expect the vertical slice of a still image to wholly represent the grandeur of a running precision? The sweeping thrill of a descent? The velvet shapes of the body flowing through space over the course of a line? If a video might more faithfully transcribe this velvet, the still image in turn renders it in marble — chiseling the singular pose out of time — where the sculptor will invariably fail to convey an extended sequence of motion, and must instead find other methods to evoke its whole. The most spectacular action shots, while arresting, pale in comparison to actually witnessing the feat oneself. Indeed, the single transcribed moment in the air can lie — the success or the failure, the preparation and trepidation, the celebration or tribulation all become irrelevant omissions. What I find to be the most meaningful parkour photographs are in fact not the documentations of our sports’ greatest feats, but instead evocations of its adrenaline, its coursing blood, its pulse in the anticipation of a jump’s deliverance, the ecstasy of presence in the air, and the grace of friends enraptured by each other’s momentum. The momentum, the quiet between motion, the shared silence before the leap, the geometry of focus as the body navigates space — these are what I find evoked in the following photographs of our practice. I ask you to look at these pictures without expectation or assumption, and instead with a willingness to inhabit. The images in this gallery lend me the pastoral feelings of the Saturday jam, the freedom of falling through different shapes, and the curiosity of my first day of training. Much like the most beautiful epitaphs, these pictures do not aim to arrest the entirety of a life and all manner of shapes it has taken, but instead to allow the viewer to unfold it for themselves.
Joshua Cavalier, @joshua_chen_cavalier
JACK DODDS
Caves
The symbiotic relationship between parkourists is often understated. People and communities collaborate naturally amongst each other to form new methods of movement and ideas within parkour. Few have experienced this for as long as Max and Benj Cave.
Jack Dodds, @doddsfilm
With extended exposure and involvement within the parkour scene in the UK, more specifically following two athletes from STORROR, Jack Dodds has created an intimate series that details the relationships between practitioners; utilising both quiet moments and dramatic scenes of movement, Dodds creates a feeling of connection that can be drawn from the images and applied to a viewer’s own relationships with their peers. With stoic expression and displays of trust between the two brothers, the series explores how time will bond community - a crucial element of parkour practice and culture.
Max Pattenden, Skin&Stone
OLLIE DURIE
Headless Chickens
Headless Chickens gathers fragments of evidence from within parkour at varying locations before stitching it carefully together to form an overall representation of the street culture that surrounds the sport. The series feels void of location, yet grounds itself with a contemplative mood that weaves through the photographs, touching on double exposure to place people into the environments. Durie’s melancholic delve into the behind-the-scenes of parkour training feels straight out of the energetic Bristol scene, yet still details the slower moments that litter themselves between large ‘sends’ and celebrations.
Max Pattenden, Skin&Stone
WESSU
Shapes / Surroundings
The ways we move and the spots we choose obviously play key roles in parkour. I think good parkour photography recognizes these shapes and surroundings – complimenting them. What I seek is the fine line between embedding a subject in its background and isolating them. We all know ‘parkour shapes’ are born out of adaptation to their surroundings, but human movement still always stands out from concrete, and that’s what I want to highlight.
Much love, Wessu
Wessu, @whoiswessu
Wessu’s series Shapes/Surroundings explores the pure visual elements of parkour photography, with a formalist approach that compares the human body with architectural shape. The photographs feature brutalist structures, photographed with a sense of the sublime, as they tower over the viewer; leaving the athletes featured to explore the frame and place themselves within the photograph seemingly freely. Wessu’s sharp corners and strong use of colour reminds a viewer the unforgiving nature of the environment that parkour athletes use, moulding their bodies and movement to the spaces they occupy.
Max Pattenden, Skin&Stone
MYLES ROSS
Without Reflection
Don’t let the floor of the valley be of comfort.
Don’t befriend the peak.
Don’t take pride in how hard the leather of your hands has become.
Each image showcases an individual moving for their own separate reason. Whether it be in play, out of functionality, under the eye of the community, or to push themselves that much further.
Each motion runs through their body in the same vein as a breath.
Myles Ross, @myles_ross
Without Reflection delicately paints the experience of parkour with a nostalgic brush; Ross’ images feel like the moment before a blink - watching on as friends, family and strangers alike interact with what it means to move. With a clear attention to light, texture and colour, the series is humble yet consolidating and forms a soft summary of the culture from the inside, while maintaining enough distance to understand where the people and environments fit into the wider world. The exploration of analogue photography as a medium and how images can interact with one another physically creates an intriguing representation of the merging of moments and memories; Ross creates evidence of what parkour will reminisce on in years to come.
Max Pattenden, Skin&Stone
