Photography is music for the eye. Music is the photography of our soul.

Self experiment: Picture yourself listening to the songs you used to listen to with your first love. Now, imagine looking at the pictures you took during that same time in your life. How do you feel? Are the two sentiments-the one from the music and the other from the photos-similar?

Brothers capturing the intangible

There is a reason why they are. Photography and music  share common ground. Both transcend language; they  touch the spectator/listener in ways that words could never succeed in doing. Aldous Houxley said “After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.” The power of photography is similar. It is the kind of power that makes Dirk Bogard say, ”The camera can photograph thought”. We also hear Ryan Lobo, the great photojournalist, explain: “Photography transcended culture, including my own. And it is, for me, a language which expressed the intangible, and gives voice to people and stories without”.

Yes, both Photography and Music assist us in capturing the intangible. A good picture freezes reality and therefore gives us the opportunity to explore a situation thoroughly and deeply. Likewise, a song, a melody is the detailed exploration of a mood, feeling or emotion. Both music and photography touch us and change us. In its best moments a great picture inspires us to act in the same way music entices us to dance.

Soul Photography and Decisive Music

But what qualifies a picture or song to be good?  When do both have the power to move us?

Musicians and Photographers have one thing in common: they must master the technique of their arts virtuously in order to understand the art of composition. Art is unique and intuitive: these artists could be dedicated students of their genre or even masters of their field of art, but if their art misses a hidden detail, all the proficiency becomes paltry. There is always one minuscule yet essential detail at the  basis of every good picture or song that cannot be taught in schools or read about in handbooks.

This tiny detail is what transforms  a mediocre picture to a paramount picture.  This detail is what brings the mojo to music. This detail is the emotion that is caught in between celluloid. It is this intangible detail that catches the eye of the beholder and allows him to be overwhelmed with emotions of joy, sorrow, or compassion.The big step from the mediocre to the paramount picture is not to be found in the actual picture but in the spark of emotion the picture evokes at the moment it is viewed.

What the “soul” is in music is the “decisive” in photography. Duke Ellington says” It don’t” mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.” In other words a picture without soul is a dead picture, a song without the vital sparkle that jumps from instrument to the ear of the listener is worthless.

What people are made of: the power of the arts

Martha Graham once said: “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost.” If the musicians’ art becomes channeled through this vitality, and if this expression is honest and genuine, it will transcend the existent.   A stunning picture is a keyhole to a hidden story, it is the small hole in the wall through which we see our reality more profoundly and wholesomely. A good picture therefore surpasses words: it expresses what cannot be written or said.

Photography and Music in their best moments allows us to sees what people are made of. On their most glorious days they enlighten man on the subject of man. Borges describes this moment of clarity and truth as follows: ”Any life is made up of a single moment, the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.” Music is a snapshot of our emotions. Just like Photography, it freezes a single moment; its atmosphere and sentiment reveal to us the hidden story.

Capture Emotions

What can we take from this insight? If you want your expressions to be unique, reach out for the intangible and bring it into existence with your art. If you want to shoot a great picture,  master the instrument;  master the composition. And then forget the rules  and play. Jamming, free styling-whatever you call it, lose yourself in the details.

Be daring enough, be curious enough to embark on a quest for what moves you because composing mesmerizing music or taking a stirring photo is impossible without heart and soul.  In the end, it is not the music we play but the harmony that reaches our listener’s mind. It is not the pictures we think we captured, but the emotions that they evoke in our viewers. The harmony of a picture touches us in the way a euphonic melody speaks to us. Music and Photography are brothers in capturing the inexpressible, revealing their powers when words simply are not enough.

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Comparison by Nikolas Konstantin

www.nikolaskonstantin.com