Things Photographers Can Learn From Musicians
It is a long standing tradition in photography that the person who clicks the shutter button gets to claim all accolades for the resulting image, whether it is their own original concept and composition or a blatant copy of someone else’s. Chalk it up to maturity of each art form, but in music there’s a clear distinction between composer and performer, between singer and songwriter, between “lyrics by” and “performed by”. Even the greatest guitar virtuoso will give credit to Led Zeppelin when playing “Stairway To Heaven” and the most celebrated classical pianist will proudly admit to performing a score originally written by Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven.
Have you ever seen a photo credit along the lines of “image by such-and-such, original composition by someone-else“?
Are you a performer or a composer? a vocalist or a songwriter? an original or a cover?
Category: Thoughts and Musings
Interesting point of view and interesting question! To speak for myself I would say that I’m trying to be a composer but sometimes I learn from other composers by performing their ideas
I hope that I’ll be known as a composer one day, not as a performer, that would be my failure. By the way, you have a great blog with posts that forces one to stop and think a bit. Thanks for this.
I am glad you bought this up. I am a professional Naturalist / Guide based in a wilderness area in India.Every day I take tourists and very often photographers into the Park .Most often than not it is because of my knowledge of the terrain,the movements of wildlife and their behavior that enable these photographers to find their subjects. Yet I get absolutely no credit when they publish / display their photographs.
I am an amateur wildlife photographer myself but I must admit that I do not have a very high opinion of wildlife photographers as such.
I absolutely love listening to music, it’s been a huge part of my life since growing up. As for photography, I’m the same… I love seeing other people’s creation and that’s what gets me going. It’s such a wonderful high to see all these beautiful images that instill in me to think about they came to be [as far as techniques, style, what the photographers were thinking at that very moment, etc.].
As for me taking photos, I don’t know what I am. I just do it whenever I feel compelled and when an idea came to mind. I’m not sure if it’s my passion, yet.
I never thought about it that way, but that’s such a good analogy. It’s interesting to me that so many photographically inclined people have a strong interest in music as well, and are often musicians themselves. I played guitar for about 10 years, and hated reading music… I spent all my time composing and improvising, I guess I’ve subconsciously translated that to photography now. Trouble with not reading music is you can’t play with others, photography can (and often should) be done solo… alright.. back to composing some engineering
thanks again for your always thought provoking posts.
You have a simplicity and clarity with words that few people have. You have put so simply and with no value judgements what I have been saying more emotionally and with value judgements. Thank you for your clarity and impartiality.
As a photographer and musician, there are other clearer connections between music and photography. A few…
The use of the instrument to create art, and the attendant need to master the “operation” of the instrument… to the point that the technical stuff becomes almost invisible and the artistic emerges.
The need to practice – you can no more make brilliant photographs by going out and shooting once a month or on weekends than you can be a brilliant performer by practicing occasionally.
The need to make mistakes, many mistakes, on the way to creating some brilliant “performances.”
Some differences…
Historically, music has been an ephemeral and transitory thing – it exists only as long as the sound is present and every performance is different. On the other hand, the photographer (like the painter, sculptor, film-maker, writer) creates a fixed, finished object and then lets it live its own life.
In photography it is much more the norm that that artist _does_ manage the entire process from conception to final print – and that mastering all of these phases of the creation of a photograph is often regarded as a good thing or even a necessary thing. In music, while there are some exceptions (historically, speaking – see note below) this is very much not the norm. Performers (especially in the so-called classical world, but elsewhere, too) rarely limit themselves to performing music they created, and quite often mostly perform music by others. Performers are rarely great composers and vice versa.
Music is most often a community activity. Even great soloists often perform with orchestras and other performers – e.g. a singer with a pianist. A photographer most often creates his/her work alone.
Additionally, both are deeply affected by and reliant upon the technology they use. (In music this is more true of instrumental music and less true of some vocal music.) By “technology” I don’t just mean modern technology. The technologies of building violins, bending metal, constructing pianos and so forth have deeply affected the course of musical arts. It is clear that the same is true in photography.
Finally, with this in mind, both are deeply affected by changes in modern technology. The move from live performance to a world dominated by recorded music has radically altered the musical experience today from that of a few decades ago. Likewise the ability to work with photographs in the digital domain (in terms of capture, post-processing, and distribution, and other evolving changes) has fundamentally altered the photographic experience for most people.
Dan
Andrew Lloyd Webber is, hands down, my favorite living composer … So I was a bit surprised to read the closing paragraph on the relevant Wikipedia article… (Or …maybe I wans’t.)
–quote–
…His biographer, John Snelson, has acknowledged the strong similarity between the opening melody of the slow movement of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and the Jesus Christ Superstar song “I Don’t Know How to Love Him”, but claims that Lloyd Webber “…brings a new dramatic tension to Mendelssohn’s original melody through the confused emotions of Mary Magdalene. The opening theme may be Mendelssohn, but the rhythmic and harmonic treatment along with new lines of highly effective melodic development are Lloyd Webber’s. The song works in its own right as its many performers and audiences can witness.”[16]
In interviews promoting Amused to Death, Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, asserted that Andrew Lloyd Webber had plagiarized short chromatic riffs from “Echoes” for sections of the musical The Phantom of the Opera; nevertheless, he decided not to file a lawsuit regarding the matter.[17] Curiously, the songwriter Ray Repp made a similar claim about the same song, but insisted that Lloyd Webber stole the idea from him. Unlike Roger Waters, Ray Repp did decide to file a lawsuit, but the court eventually cleared Lloyd Webber of plagiarism.[18]
…
Lloyd Webber has also been accused of cribbing off Puccini, most notably in Requiem[19] and The Phantom of the Opera. A claim regarding Phantom by the Puccini estate was settled out of court.”
–end quote–
Still, my favorite composer… a living Genius, IMO
Heres how photogs perform another’s comp:
http://www.naturephotographers.net/imagecritique/bbs.cgi?a=vm&mr=33478&CGISESSID=2e45e68f1751001efc91eb8e1d0d3a2b&u=19703
An original or a cover…I don’t know, but you sure gave me something to think about. Obviously everyone WANTS to say they are an original. We all want to be special in our art form. Some strive and work to be. I think you are a natural
Such a beautiful and simple analogy made more powerful by a captivating image.
I can always hear music playing when I am composing my images. Is that a bad thing?
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