1 + 1

I am a great fan of music.  I tend to watch a lot of music programs on TV (not that I watch that much TV) and one of my favorites right now is Spectacle with Elvis Costello on The Sundance channel). Elvis Costello has an assortment of musicians join him on stage and they play music and chat in between numbers. It’s a great show (and no I am not getting paid for this plug).

I have always thought (and I am not the only one) that the creative process is similar regardless of the actual medium of your art. So, for example, many times if you are reading a passage about the writing process you can usually substitute the word photograph or photography for the term writing. Artists have always found inspiration outside their own medium. Aaron Siskind was influenced by the circle of painters he hung around with (Piet Mondrian) and Keith Carter is inspired by the writings of Horton Foote.

It is in this vein that I watch interviews with musicians. Music is so corporeal; it affects you physically and that is what I want my photographs to do. On the Spectacle program with Bruce Springsteen he  said something that made me sit up and say yeah, that’s right! In speaking about writing music he said (and I paraphrase loosely) ” … in writing music one plus one has to equal three. If at the end all you have is words and paper then you fail, if all you have is paint and canvas than you failed. There has to be that something other, that transcendence…)

Same with photography. Light plus silver has to equal magic!