Sometimes you have a friend that wants a photo taken for whatever reason, and the friend in question was a schoolmate from my days at the Conservatoire de Cholet. We both still play and now play in the same orchestra. She wanted a photograph of herself with the said violin. She was expecting me to whip out my phone and Bob’s your uncle. Little did she realise that this was just not an option. As somebody who dabbles in photography with cameras and not camera phones, I suggested that I bring the studio to her and that we would try to get something half-decent.
We set up the rendez-vous, and up I turned. I was offered tea, which as you now know, Dear Reader, is something I have a great affection for, and this girl knows how to make a lovely cup of tea! Her husband arrived from getting their little boy from school, and we started setting up the studio. He was a good sport and let me use him for my test shots to get all my camera settings in order.
Then onto the serious business of getting some portraits! Now that’s the easy bit. The slightly less easy bit is where the magic happens. Photoshop is my editing software, and yet is far from being worn, or soft! The idea is to keep everything looking natural, and the premise “less is more” is my goal. If my editing is obvious, then I have to go back to the drawing board.
Before / After
This is the first edited shot from the session and gives you an idea of what the result can be. See what you think and tell me in the comments how “you” might have done it!
As you can see, the poor girl is a violin player and not a horn player like Yours Truly, but we have to make allowances. Not everyone has the chance to play the most beautiful instrument in the world.
La Générale refers to a French dress rehearsal before a show or concert but with no senior military officer in sight. But why am I talking about a rehearsal? Well, as some of you Dear Readers might know that for my many sins, I am a horn player and musician. Both can happen simultaneously, despite our reputation! From February 2009 until July 2022, I played the horn for the Orchestre d’Harmonie de Cholet in France. Some people had cottoned onto the fact that I dabble in this photography lark, and since they had just changed musical direction, they would like me to take some photos of the new director in front of the band. I of course said yes, and following the lessons learnt during the American Concert, I was feeling quietly confident.
The musicians were asked to attend the Générale in concert dress, all looking very smart. This would allow me to wander around the stage freely, not annoy the audience, and have complete freedom to try to take a couple of photos. What a good idea! It also meant that I had two hours to get the job done in a satisfactory manner.
I had the Canon 6D Mark II with the 85mm F1.8 Canon lens, and the trusty and also favourite, almost to the point of it being a fetish, Fuji Film X100F, with the telephoto adapter which transforms the lens into a 50mm F 2.0 lens. I could take off that adapter and have 35mm equivalent lens. To the uninitiated, you will think I have just spouted out a huge amount of gobbledy gook, but I it actually means something to me. It was out of the question that I would miss 60 photos like last time. A lesson most definitely learnt!
Sooooo… I wandered around taking photos and trying to make sure I didn’t just photograph the horn section. Nobody couldn’t accuse me of favouritism; except that I had treated some images first for friends and had posted them on Facebook. Two of those friends were, of course, in the Horn Section. Ooooops a daisy. Ah well. I did, however, tell everyone that these were merely a foretaste of things to come, and I realised I had actually been quite democratic and represented most of the musicians. Out of the 400 odd photos taken, 124 were presented to the musicians in a private Google Gallery. Not bad for two hours of shooting. You will see a small selection of those photos at the end of this article.
As a thank you, I was invited to the concert the next day. After a Barber appointment to tame my overgrown beard and a visit to the pub just to say hello to the staff and friends, I headed off to Cholet for my Rendez Vous with music listening. Keep music live etc!!
Naturally, with the change of conductor, there will be a change of musical direction. Each person had to get used to the novelty, and the new conductor has to make his mark on the orchestra, which is perfectly normal. I had heard all kinds of things and wanted to make up my own mind. The concert theme was “Heart of the Forest.” I was determined to take it all in with no preconceived ideas. Just enjoy the bloody music, you fool. So I sat down and did just that. The sound at the back of the auditorium differed completely from what I had heard the night before. As a musician, we hear the concert from where we are on the stage. The audience really hears that difference. I was blown away and just sat there enjoying watching my friends create music.
With time, the orchestra and the new musical director will get to know each other, and I look forward to seeing their next concert and seeing the outcome of this new relationship in future concerts, and it goes without saying that I wish them the very best of success for the future!
Now for the photos, and not just the horn section…
For my many sins, I am a musician and not just a depressive dude with a camera. I play the French horn. Some might even say that I’m a French French horn player, without being corrected by my autocorrect. So this music thing… I play the horn in a Wind Band, in Cholet, in the Anjou region of France, with good food and wine. I wonder what decided me to join them… There are a series of concerts every year with each concert having a given theme. This next concert’s theme is about the planets. The programme will be The Planets, by Gustav Holst, and the third Symphony by Johan de Meij, Planet Earth.
If you want to read Wikipedia to tell you about the Planets by Holst, then you can click here. I will now give you my version of events. Gustav Holst, a man with Swedish, German, and Latvian origins but born in England, wrote a series of pieces that made up the Planets Suite. His ancestors must have settled before Brexit! This was ground-breaking stuff, akin to Stravinsky and his Rites of Spring. However, this program is about the planets, so we’ll leave Spring to Igor, the composer and not Frankenstein’s whacky assistant. As any trailblazer will tell, they just weren’t ready for it man, and that it was ahead of its time, which to be fair, it was. He started writing the suite in 1914, and the first movement was “Mars, the bringer of War.” Quite eerie when you think about what happened in 1914. Composing finished in 1917 and the première took place at Queen’s Hall, on the 29th of September, in 1918. There were seven movements, and when I was a child, I always wondered why the planet Pluto wasn’t included. What did they have against Mickey Mouse’s dog??? Then I learnt Pluto was only discovered in 1930. The poor planet was demoted in 2006 and is no longer considered a planet but is still a heavenly body… Just like Yours Truly!
This music that first disturbed people, has, over time, and thanks to John Williams, become the music of space and the stars, wars or no wars. Some have accused John Williams of nicking everything in the first movement, Mars the bringer of War, and using it to compose the music to Star Wars. I’m not saying he nicked it, but… A nice American gentleman, Charles Cornell, has exposed his point of view in a YouTube video
When you look at it like that you can get where those people are coming from. But in a completely nonpartial way, I couldn’t give a flying fart. Both composers’ music is wonderful, and I think one could call it more homage than pilfering. Mind you, there are certain similarities.
When you look at the Planets Suite, you notice the Earth isn’t mentioned. One person that noticed this and who could do something about it, is a certain Johan de Meij, whose name is engraved on a plaque on our rehearsal room in the Cholet Conservatoire. A Dutch trombonist, he moved into composition, arranging, and conducting. In the Wind Band world, he is very well known and respected. Nearly all of us will have played some of his music at one stage in our careers.
The third Symphony takes us from the beginning of our Lonely Planet, Planet Earth, ending with Mother Earth. It isn’t as much a narrative, but a more auditory exposition of ideas in an abstract form. A soundtrack with electronic sounds helps the symphony become one musical experience as opposed to the classical three separate movements. Planet Earth really is a continuation of Holst’s Planets.
It’s a whopping significant piece and a joy to play despite a few difficulties to challenge the horn player. We were very fortunate to have Johan come and visit us, not just to say Hallo, but to explain the piece to us, conduct us and rehearse us. The poor lad was full of cold, but shared his wisdom and experience with us, which I’m sure will prove itself invaluable for our performance on the 14th of November in the Théâtre Saint Louis in Cholet. We worked on aural skills listening to the chords and listening to them to adjust the tuning and seeing where we fit into those chords. It might be an insignificant detail to you, but the seats are very comfortable and the acoustics are pretty damned good too!. Holst couldn’t make it. Must have had something else in his diary for that weekend!
IJM Photography 