Photographing Musical Instruments

I spent this morning photographing musical instruments. I wasn’t primarily interested in capturing what is sometimes referred to as a record image of the instrument, which is an image that captures the best possible view of the subject to show the viewer what the thing looks like in reality.

Rather, what I wanted to do was to capture something that I would like to see as an image. And that ‘something’ is the riddle of photography.

It’s a bit like archery – there’s a kind of summing up of what is the right thing to do, and then a click and let go.

But unlike archery, the photographer has to make a mental translation of the image from the 3D image he can see in the viewfinder to the 2D image as it will appear on the page.

Still, you can’t just go on thinking and thinking – your hands get tired and your mind gets tired, so there is a tension in the coming together of the thoughts and the vision and the click of the shutter.

And it has to be like that – you can’t go on beating your brow and agonizing over taking a photograph – click and let go.

This clarinet is a good example of the ‘problem’, and these are the running thoughts I had as I was photographing it.


    How much of the clarinet do I want to show?

    If I photograph the whole length of the instrument, it is going to make a photograph of a long, skinny object, so most of the frame will be devoid of anything at all?

    Should I have it running from top left or top right? What difference will that make to the way a viewer feels about the shot?

    If I shoot it against a dark background, will that capture the luxuriousness of the instrument, which is what I want?

clarinet

The Salvation Army

The Salvation Army is an evangelical Christian church and a charity, founded in England and operating throughout the world. One of its principal aims is the relief of the poor, homeless, and destitute.

It is organized like an army: Its members wear uniforms and its brass bands are a regular site in the centre of towns before Christmas, playing and asking for donations to its work. They are always polite and never harangue people. They play peacefully and they generally engender a good feeling in the areas they play.

One thing that marks the Salvation Army out is the way people regard it and respond to it.

And that can be read in the way people stop and stand and look and listen to the bands. And in the way they dig in their pockets and find the coins to give. Because people like and trust the Salvation Army – they think it does good work: Their parents thought so and their grandparents thought so.

So they stop and smile a little and listen and as often as not they dig in their pockets. And if they have a young son or a daughter with them, they give the coin to them to go forward and put it in the hat.

English society seems to be changing very rapidly. Mockery, ridicule, abandonment, hedonism, disdain (and it’s mirror of self-loathing) seem to have grabbed English society. Binge drinking is almost incomprehensible to the French just across the English channel just 40 miles away, and yet it has taken hold so strongly in England that it merits debates in parliament.

But when the Salvation Army starts to play, there is no ridicule or heckling, despite the old-fashioned look of the uniforms.

salvation

Nature Up Close

I came across some nerites shells that have the most wonderful patterns. Some of them have patterns that twirl smoothly around the shell while others seem to have jumped a line, as though the growth had been interrupted.

shells