About Parsons PhotoGraphics
Marc Parsons

1981 - living at a boarding school - and another boarder, a great friend of mine, showed me a camera that his father had bequeathed him - and I became infatuated. I decided that I wanted a camera of my own. My friend decided that he wanted a guitar - so the money saving commenced. I got a job at the school mopping up the cafeteria, and saved everything towards the purchase of my first camera. (My friend did the same - though I don’t know how he raised the money). Meanwhile, I was reading everything I could get my hands on about cameras and photography.

After months (the majority of the year), I finally saved enough to purchase my prize - my first SLR! Even had enough to buy a couple rolls of film...but didn’t have enough money to get the rolls processed (that’s OK - I could see them in my mind). One of my favorite images in my mind (that I never actually saw) was a wonderful shot of a squirrel - I could almost reach out and touch him ... at 800 feet away ... he must have taken up at least 0.2% of the frame!

While I was burning up film that would never be processed, I ran into a classmate that was writing “sports reports” for our school to the local (small) newspaper - and he introduced me to his local newspaper editor, and convinced him to allow me to photograph the next sporting event. To my surprise, this editor said YES, gave me 4 rolls of Tri-X B&W film, and off to the track and field event we went.

Maybe it was because of the studying I did during the time I was saving up to buy the camera - or maybe it was dumb luck - but I was able to get a few good photos from that track meet. The first photo that I took from a “serious” 35mm camera was published in the local paper - so much for the “unprocessed” rolls I had.

After a few more school sporting events, I was invited to be a “stringer” (non-employee photographic contributor) for that paper - and the bug never stopped biting.

After years of “news” photography, I wanted to do something a bit more “artistic” - and I cannot think of anything more artistic than the natural world - especially the overlooked, small side of that world - so I started concentrating on that.

I became so infatuated with that subject material - I couldn’t keep it to myself - so I starting teaching. The one thing I love almost as much as shooting nature photography, is teaching nature photography!

And so - here we are. I would love for others to experience the joy I felt - still feel - by passing on some of the knowledge and 45+ years of experience I have.