MUSIC & PHOTOGRAPHY
Passing the Baton
Face to Face with the Most Rarified Fellowship of Musicians
My Inspiration
Ansel Adams, perhaps the most recognized name in photography, was also a musician — a pianist. His affinity with both disciplines led him to famously compare the negative of a photograph to the score of a symphony. That struck a chord.
Like Adams, whose career took a detour at the corner of Steinway and Graflex, I am a classically trained instrumentalist. I understood how the exquisite detail and rich tonality he wrought from film could be transposed to prints on paper using just nine shades of gray (between absolute black and white) and likewise how musical compositions are conceived with just the eight notes in an octave (plus sharps and flats). Adams’s implication was clear: making a photograph is a lot like making music.
To further hone that idea, photographers (who turn latent images into art you can see) share a practice with symphony orchestra conductors (who turn latent musical notation into art you can hear). This practice represents an intermediate step in the creative process between conceptualization and realization. In its absence, music and photography exist in limbo, an arcane state in which both art forms can not only endure indefinitely but…
