Music & Imagery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love good music.  Now this might not be the world’s most earth-shattering confession, but there you go.  Now, my love of music isn’t really restricted to one particular genre or another, and my tastes are pretty eclectic (though I must confess, I’ve never found any rap, hip-hop, or heavy metal that I’m really fond of).

My iTunes has everything from classical, jazz, & opera to show tunes, rock, & pop.  Oh, not to mention a HUGE collection of Christmas music.   I was particularly proud last weekend, when driving back to Washington, I had AC/DC, Alfie Boe, She & Him, Dean Martin, and Keith Urban all playing back to back.  Yes.  I’m awesome.

So, what does this have to do with photography?  Well, not much.

But, I have found that while visual arts and music are both beautiful and enriching on their own, together they are even more powerful.  Beautiful images combined with the right song are even more poignant.  To that end, one of my practices as a photographer is to create a musical slideshow for each of my clients as the first impression they get of their photographs.

Here’s a little insight into my workflow.  After I’ve finished retouching and doing the artwork on the photos, I upload them into a program where I arrange them, create the visual effects, and choose the perfect song.  Sometimes the song choice is very apparent and easy, other times it takes a little bit of searching.  Other times I’ve *thought* I knew just the right song, but when I put it with the images it didn’t gel.  Nevertheless, I’m tenacious about such things, and eventually I end up finding the perfect fit.  I love it: organizing the photos and telling a story with both with the images and music makes my creative process that much richer.

Conversely, there have also been a couple of times when music or a song has inspired the photography.  Last December I was listening to some new music by Katie Melua, and heard the song “Red Balloons.”  I got a vision in my head of my nieces standing in snow covered lawns, dressed in red and black, holding dozens of red balloons, with a final shot of them floating away.

I called the girls, and they agreed to do the shoot when I went home for Christmas.  We had so much fun (despite the cold)!  Though we didn’t get to shoot at the Daly Mansion as I had originally intended, we did get to go to Riverside Park, and had a grand time.  As I was shooting, I had the song running through my mind, which helped me design the photos I wanted.  When I got back to the studio for developing, and put the final project together, the result was awesome!

I’ve recently created a YouTube channel to showcase the videos from my various photo shoots.  So far, I’ve posted the Red Balloon video, the videos from Erin & Trevor’s shoots as well as Brent & Michelle’s engagement session.  To see them, please visit my YouTube page at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/GatsbyNouvel?feature=mhsn#p/a/u/2/QVggHBvxrd8.

What do you think?  Does the music make it a little more special?