Music as analogy for LF photography

[Bernice Loui]

Photography by method is a sympathetic medium driven by light or Photo (light) graphy (record). Without light, there would be no image recorded.

Light be it shades of monochrome or tied with color has emotional value as does shapes related to way light-shadow interacts with shapes (composition). In ways identical to music, basic aspects of music pitch, harmony, chords, rhythm are some basic structures that are what makes music (most any kind of music) ... music in ways no different than photography or any other means of human expression.

It is much about emotions, memory and passage of time being in the human condition.


Bernice

[Vaughn]

Like when that guy that sat at a piano for a minute or so without playing...an incredible musical silence. All part of the light-created space recorded onto a sheet of film.

[Tin Can]

On the spectrum

i am

[Michael R]

Like when that guy that sat at a piano for a minute or so without playing...an incredible musical silence. All part of the light-created space recorded onto a sheet of film.

Seriously?

[Tin Can]

Very seriously

4′33″ by John Cage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4%E2%80%B233%E2%80%B3

Seriously?

[j.e.simmons]

Back when a poor woman was trying to put up with me as my wife, I had no fancy timer for printing. I dug out my metronome, set it at 60bpm, and counted out my exposures. As a musician, a ticking metronome was no bother at all - even when ticking for a two hour print session. Not so my wife. Now ex.

[Heroique]

In ways identical to music, basic aspects of music pitch, harmony, chords, rhythm are some basic structures that are what makes music (most any kind of music) ... music in ways no different than photography or any other means of human expression. It is much about emotions, memory and passage of time being in the human condition.

This triggered my memory about an old thread titled “Johsel Namkung: a retrospective - book review.”

Here’s the photographer:



I remembered that Namkung strongly associated photography with the experience of music.

Just take a look at this, his web site’s general artistic statement:

I spend a lot of time looking for subjects. Oftentimes, I make a scouting trip, hiking for instance, going up a trail to a certain point. I usually leave my camera equipment behind, and hike and scout and come back, and if it’s worthwhile, I then take my camera up, and spend a long time adjusting, setting up, digesting or looking at it, and from different angles, distances, and so forth. And finally, when I find something, there always has to be a unifying, kinetic force. Which means the rhythm, and in musical terms the melodic lines. And polyphonic melodic lines especially, like Bach, for instance, or Handel and Mozart. Linear structures. And then its juxtaposition, its counterbalancing, which is called counterpoint in musical terms. And I find almost every time, when I see something, I always see melodic lines, and counterbalancing forces, and weight, and harmony. And that becomes the skeletal form of my photographs. So my photographs could always be interpreted through musical forms.

A case study of synesthesia?

I think the statement sounds (pun intended) very similar to Ethan’s post #3 above, except in exact reverse. That is, Namkung sees a landscape and “hears” it; Ethan hears some music and “sees” a landscape. What I find especially interesting is that Namkung mentions only Baroque and Classical-era composes, and Ethan Romantic and Modern-era composers. Any psychologists around here? ;^)

[Merg Ross]

Edward Weston could "feel" music in a well composed image.

From his Daybooks, 1930.

"Whenever I can feel a Bach fugue in my work I know I have arrived. I never hear Bach without deep enrichment --- I almost feel he has been my greatest influence."

[Michael R]

That’s not what synesthesia is. It’s just an artist statement, which is BS and/or marketing.

Honestly reading this thread, basically every response you’ve received is what I referred to. Just forced, almost random parallels (depending on how much music the photographer is familiar with, but it’s often name dropping the usual suspects) for the sake of adding some sort of additional dimension or gravitas.

Sorry for raining on the parade.

This triggered my memory about an old thread titled “Johsel Namkung: a retrospective - book review.”

Here’s the photographer:



I remembered that Namkung strongly associated photography with the experience of music.

Just take a look at this, his web site’s general artistic statement:

I spend a lot of time looking for subjects. Oftentimes, I make a scouting trip, hiking for instance, going up a trail to a certain point. I usually leave my camera equipment behind, and hike and scout and come back, and if it’s worthwhile, I then take my camera up, and spend a long time adjusting, setting up, digesting or looking at it, and from different angles, distances, and so forth. And finally, when I find something, there always has to be a unifying, kinetic force. Which means the rhythm, and in musical terms the melodic lines. And polyphonic melodic lines especially, like Bach, for instance, or Handel and Mozart. Linear structures. And then its juxtaposition, its counterbalancing, which is called counterpoint in musical terms. And I find almost every time, when I see something, I always see melodic lines, and counterbalancing forces, and weight, and harmony. And that becomes the skeletal form of my photographs. So my photographs could always be interpreted through musical forms.

A case study of synesthesia?

I think the statement sounds (pun intended) very similar to Ethan’s post #3 above, except in exact reverse. That is, Namkung sees a landscape and “hears” it; Ethan hears some music and “sees” a landscape. What I find especially interesting is that Namkung mentions only Baroque and Classical-era composes, and Ethan Romantic and Modern-era composers. Any psychologists around here? ;^)

[h2oman]

I often hear Bach when photographing, then some awful pop band from the 1980s when I see the developed negative!