Biography and career
He began his photographic path in local publications and was an unhurried and calm person, yet responsible and dependable, ready to carry out an editorial assignment at any time. Even to an unexpected request to assist the editorial office he would briefly answer the calling journalist: “I will come.” Clearly, such precise self-organisation came from his first profession. Parkhomenko graduated from the Riga Institute of Civil Aviation Engineers and taught for a long time at the Kyrgyz Aviation College, and later at the I. Abdraimov University. His remarkable responsiveness and particular sense of responsibility for assigned tasks helped him to break into the pages of our newspaper back in the era when such photo-aces as Vladimir Kirienko, Mikhail Shlafshtein, Edgar Vilchinsky, Anatoly Tolmachev, Erkin Mamadaliev, Asan Kadyrkulov, Vladimir Alekseevsky, Vitaly Lazarev, Yuri Romanov, Vladimir Pirogov, Sagyn Ailchiev were among its authors.
Style and themes
Photographs inherently reveal the character and temperament of their author. Images capture a moment of frozen reality that no longer exists in time, because the people depicted in a photograph are someone’s image, imagined or recorded by the photographer himself. Looking at Parkhomenko’s newspaper photos, one can say that he did not tolerate fuss and shoddy work in them, since he did not allow chance into the frame. He "painted" his photographs and mastered everything that was depicted on them. As an author, Vladimir Sergeevich was distinguished by three key themes: his native city Bishkek and its people; the art of Kyrgyzstan and its masters; the life of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kyrgyzstan. He proposed the latter himself. These were photo reports published in our newspaper under the now very popular column “How do you live, diaspora?”, which told about the life of national-cultural centres operating under the auspices of the Assembly. For more than 20 years he sensitively "tracked" their rich existence with his camera. Recently Vladimir Sergeevich closely collaborated with the International Foundation of Roza Otunbayeva, telling through photo-stories about its interesting initiatives and projects in the fields of education, medicine and culture.
On photographic practice
He believed that even on favourite and well-developed subjects different photographs happen. Each year no more than two or three join the photo collection, and that is already a result; he said these subjects were far from exhausted for him. “Through photographic works a person learns the world and himself in it, and it is a happiness to capture the breath of life. You captured it, and it remains in the frame,” Parkhomenko often repeated. He believed that nothing else could convey that except photography. He preferred colour photographs; in his works people revealed themselves in various life situations. He had lyrical pictures, occasional humorous shots, frames that revealed the mysterious soul of an eastern person, and most often he celebrated the living pulse of beloved Bishkek and its inhabitants. Vladimir Sergeevich showed the surrounding people and their fates with great love and tenderness; his photographs absorbed, perhaps, everything that happened around the author. He shared a personal revelation with the future viewer, liking to emphasise that it is easy to distinguish photographic art: if, looking at a shot, you feel a response in your soul, then the author put something into it.
Legacy
For him, photography was a kind of conductor between people of the past, present and future, a connecting thread from person to person, a track encompassing all the people who passed through the lens of his camera. When a good photographer photographs people, he does not simply communicate with a person, but interacts with their soul, thereby as if absorbing a small part of it. Through acquaintance with Vladimir Sergeevich we met on the pages of “Slovo Kyrgyzstana” people many of whom no longer exist, but they live in the heart and memory of the photographer, and therefore in our memory. He did not consider himself a photo-artist, believing that the art of photography exists by itself, separate from everything. His photography is interesting only because he photographed famous and notable people: politicians, diplomats, artists, scientists, teachers, athletes and ordinary people with remarkable destinies, making them a possession of the people.
Vladimir Parkhomenko himself is an entire era of images about our life, our native republic, its art, life and traditions of the peoples living in Kyrgyzstan. He always lived creatively and was tireless in his photographic search, and helped colleagues to accomplish that. He could see elusive, seemingly trivial life collisions and moments for which he stopped our fleeting time with his sensitive camera. As if he wanted to go through life constantly surprising those around him, and often he succeeded. Vladimir Parkhomenko has left us forever. His world, which made his compatriots — Kyrgyzstani people spiritually better and professionally richer — has gone. Of course, it is very sad, but perhaps today we should mourn us, those who remain without him, more. Bright memory to you, Vladimir Sergeevich, and long life in memory!
Newspaper "Slovo Kyrgyzstana": https://slovo.kg/?p=115142
Alexander SHEPELENKO.
15.5.2020.