Tag: music and photography

Saint Cado

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The concert was for the municipality of Lorient and was more I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine. Sometimes as musicians we have to kowtow to certain political matters to keep the municipality sweet. They said it would be cramped, but it was, at worst, cosy, so no complaints there.

After the concert, I had organised my car so I could sleep in it. I parked up in front of my mother-in-law’s house to spend the night and get some photography in during the early hours of the morning — and because my mother-in-law can be intense, and I don’t like bothering people. It’s not that I don’t like staying overnight in people’s houses, but at one stage on exercise with the RCT (Royal Corps of Transport) back in the late 1980s, I learnt that I could sleep anywhere and that it was nothing to worry about. I didn’t have my sleeping bag from those days, which would let me sleep comfortably in minus temperatures, but I did have a couple of Scottish tartan blankets that would keep me nice and warm.

It wasn’t long before I got off to sleep. I actually slept quite well, considering, and bought myself breakfast at the local boulangerie. No snoring to contend with and no risk of being shouted at because the dog was awake and needed to go outside to poop. Yes, a very satisfying night.

After my wonderful bakery breakfast, I headed to St Cado, which really is a cadeau — a gift — for the eyes. You’ll see what I mean when you see the pictures.

I relish solitude, not just because I’m an introvert, but because I like calm and quiet. And the idea of being up at the crack of dawn is wonderful, especially when I don’t have to get out of my bed and stop hugging my wife. I was on my own and loving every minute of it.

I arrived at St Cado and used the public conveniences, as it is not the done thing to poop in front of everyone. I’m not a dog, after all. St Cado was there waiting for me to get some photos in some beautiful light. I’ve started bracketing lately to get as much as I can out of each image. Bracketing, for those who think I am speaking in Chinese, consists of taking the same photo three times — once with normal metering for light, once underexposed, and once overexposed. Back in the day, you would set up your tripod and take each photo one at a time, but now I press the button and it does it automatically. On film you would lose film doing this, but on digital, with an empty SD card — why not?

As the morning light continued to change and the village slowly came to life, I packed up my gear feeling quietly content. These simple moments — waking early, capturing the beauty of a place like St Cado, and enjoying solitude — remind me why I keep a camera close. It’s not just about the photos, but about being present and finding peace in the everyday. Saint Cado truly was a gift to the senses, and I’m grateful for the chance to savour it in my own way.

Notes in Monochrome: Music, Photography, and a Quiet Beach Walk

Posted on Posted in Black and White Photography, Bretagne, Music, Travel photographyTagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

Those who know me know I’m alright at photography, reasonably OK at music, and not especially brilliant at much else. Over Christmas, I was off adventuring in China, but now I’m back in France, trying not to overcommit—and failing, as usual.

It turns out I’ve joined a new orchestra. Lanester, just next door to Lorient, who needed a horn player, and some of the musicians I toured with last year gave me the heads-up. “Only one full-day rehearsal a month,” they said. “Just come try it out,” they said. So I did. And here we are.  Oops a daisy

It’s early days, but I’m settling in, and I think they’re warming up to me too. I’m doing my best to approach things with what I like to call legendary finesse—and not my more traditional approach of putting my foot in it. So far, so good.

Getting to Lanester is a bit of a trek, but I’m lucky to liftshare—what the French call co-voiturage—with Anne, a colleague from the SBL and a percussionist in the orchestra. It’s good to have company on the road, especially someone who doesn’t feel the need to critique my driving. Not that anyone at home does that. Of course not. Never. Virginie, me darling wife…

Anne has serious percussion chops, which puts a bit of pressure on my playlist game. I found a drum tutorial version of Wipe Out by The Surfaris recently and played it for her—she was delighted. It’s nice to have shared moments like that on the drive. Adds a little rhythm to the road.

Anne also likes to arrive early to check over the percussion gear before concerts. On this particular day, we had some time to spare before the pre-concert rehearsal, so we headed down to the beach for a walk. Spring light, sea air, and the strange hush that comes with lowish tide—it felt like stepping sideways out of time.

Naturally, I had my camera with me. You didn’t think I’d go to the coast without it, did you?

There’s something about black and white photography that suits these moments. The beach in spring  isn’t always the bright, holiday postcard version most people imagine—it’s quieter, starker, but no less beautiful. Stripped of colour, the textures stand out: the grain of driftwood, the ripple of sand under wind, the blurred silhouettes of gulls in motion.

I love how black and white invites the eye to slow down, to notice more. Just like music, really—it’s not always the loudest note that makes the biggest impression.

Below, you’ll find a few of the images I made during that walk. Nothing posed, nothing polished. Just a quiet moment between rehearsal and performance, caught in passing light.

A photography Philosophy – Part III – The Emotions of Photography

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Emotion first

Let me tell you about an essay my music teacher set us at the start of A level. There were four of us doing music, and the lessons happened in his study, more like an Oxbridge tutorial than a classroom. The brief: describe the perfect piece of music.

Back then I picked Glenn Miller’s Moonlight Serenade. One of the others picked Holst’s The Planets. When we got our essays back, the master tore mine apart. Repetitive, no real musical merit, corny, he said. I argued back that it didn’t matter, because of how the piece made me feel.

Looking back I should have handed in a blank sheet with a note saying there’s no such thing as a perfect piece of music, taste is entirely subjective, and maybe he should rethink the question. I didn’t, obviously. Seventeen year olds rarely have that kind of nerve. But it stuck with me. Still does, decades later.

Subjectivity, and why photography isn’t literature

Same goes for any art. What the viewer takes from it is entirely subjective, and you have to be careful reading your own meaning into somebody else’s reaction. Literature can hide fairly obvious themes if you go looking for them. Photography’s different, I think. Whatever connection someone has with a photograph, it’s emotional first. Everything else, the composition, the technique, the references, comes after.

What my horn teacher told me

So what actually makes that emotional connection happen, and how do I try to engineer it? I keep coming back to something my horn teacher in France used to say. Your concerto is your text, he’d tell me. Your job is to recite that text to the audience, that’s all you need to think about. You’ve done the work, learned the technique, and the moment the sound leaves the bell of the instrument it isn’t yours any more. It belongs to whoever’s listening. They’re the ones who decide what it means to them.

Photography works the same way for me, portraits especially. The old advice is to focus on the eyes, because apparently that’s the door into the soul or whatever. Corny, but true enough. If I can get my model looking straight down the lens at me, and therefore at whoever’s looking at the photo afterwards, I’m most of the way to a portrait that actually lands.

Kate, my daughter
On the street

Street photography’s a different game. Sometimes it’s just about catching the one detail everyone walked past without noticing, and hoping somebody sees it in the photo afterwards even though they missed it in real life. If you want the technical side of that, leading lines, rule of thirds, all of it, I’ve got tutorials on the site that go into it properly. This isn’t that post.

Colour, or the lack of it

Colour does a lot of the emotional lifting too, whether I mean it to or not. Warm tones, reds, oranges, tend to feel energetic or inviting. Cooler blues and greens slow things down, make an image feel calmer, more like you’re supposed to sit with it. I try to think about this while I’m shooting rather than fixing it afterwards in Lightroom. It’s not scientific. It’s more like deciding the mood before you’ve even framed the shot.

Black and white strips all of that out, which is exactly why I love it, on film or digital, doesn’t matter which. Without colour you’re left with texture, shadow, contrast. Somehow that can hit just as hard, sometimes harder. There’s something about a black and white image that feels outside of time to me. Nostalgic, maybe. Or just quiet.

None of this works if I’m rushing, though. Half the time the difference between a photo I keep and one I bin is whether I stepped back for a second before pressing the shutter. Sounds obvious written down. Doesn’t stop me forgetting it constantly.

I don’t have this figured out, not even close. But when I look back at that photo of Kate, my daughter, up above on Fomapan, I don’t think about aperture, or the fact I nearly missed focus. I think about how she was looking at me that day. That’s the whole thing, really. The technical stuff gets you to the moment. After that it’s just you, your camera, and whether you’re paying attention.

Next time you’re out shooting, try the thing my horn teacher told me. Do the work, get the technique out of the way, then let it go. Stop worrying about what you want the photo to say and start wondering what the person looking at it is going to feel. Worked for Glenn Miller, badly, according to my old music teacher. Might work better for you.

Also in this series: Part I — An Introduction  ·  Part II — Why Do We Photograph?  ·  Part III — The Emotions of Photography  ·  Part IV — The Art of Storytelling  ·  Part V — Identity & Self-Expression  ·  Part VI — Connection Through Photography  ·  Part VII — The Philosophy of Impermanence  ·  Conclusion