About

Michael Parker is a London-based journalist and photographer.
 
+44 7773 376166 | michael at astarix dot coe dot youkay
 

(I’m not the Oxford bioethics academic, purveyor of quality thatched cottages, musician or archaeologist, nor the pulp thriller-writer, former chief of BNFL or manufacturer of sherbert lemons. A popular name, it turns out.)
 

I’ve worked as a staff and freelance news reporter and features writer since 2004, published in: The Big Issue,
The Independent, The Observer, Metro, Clash Magazine, Zagat, and local newspapers such as the East London Advertiser, Hackney Gazette and Hampstead and Highgate Express. I even got nominated for Reporter of the Year at the Regional Press Awards 2008.
 
I write about music, technology, privacy and civil liberties, policy relating to sex work, drugs and mental health, history, and people.
 
My news editorial photography, live music and events, and candid portraiture has been published in newspapers, magazines and websites, unlike the pictures of burning Airfix models I took as a child with my first camera, a Zeiss Ikon Nettar 518/516. In 2010 I visited Chernobyl and interviewed survivors of the catastrophe, which became the photo-essay Signs of Life, which was exhibited in Berlin, November 2010. I’ve done weddings too.
 

I’ve worked as a press officer for NO2ID, the national campaign against the National Identity Scheme and the database state which successfully campaigned for the repeal of the Identity Cards Act 2006. I am also a trustee of Comm-Tech, a trading IT charity in Brixton that uses open source and recycled computers to support the kind of small, effective local charities that you haven’t heard of because they spend all their money on their aims rather than marketing.
 

And the name, Astarix? Somewhat ahead of the curve, 10 years ago I started a company offering Linux consultancy and, while it never took off, I still have hundreds of business cards and an unusual domain name — perhaps just as well considering how many Michael Parkers there are.
 

All photographs on this website are copyright their respective owners.