Soloists at the North Carolina Symphony

I recently had the great oppor­tu­nity to pho­to­graph a cou­ple of mem­bers of the North Car­olina Sym­phony for some upcom­ing con­cert pro­mo­tions, both print and on the web.  I always love the oppor­tu­nity to get paid for my pho­tog­ra­phy, of course, but I also always love new oppor­tu­ni­ties and new chal­lenges.  I jumped at the chance to do some por­traits of Dovid Fried­lan­der and Melanie Wils­den.

In some ways, shoot­ing por­traits of musi­cians is old hat–portraits are what I shoot mostly, after all.  But each shoot is a new oppor­tu­nity to be enriched by tal­ented and inter­est­ing peo­ple, and to make new con­tacts, and to try new things.  These were my first posed shoots with instru­ments, for exam­ple, and it was fun to try to fig­ure out how to pose them with those instru­ments to show­case both the artist and their musi­cal tools.

I also think that what musi­cians do is some­what anal­o­gous to what pho­tog­ra­phers do–their play­ing is part craft, part art, and soul and emo­tion are every bit as impor­tant as any other art.  Where they have an oboe and a vio­lin, we have a cam­era and a lens.  Just as a musi­cian can be tech­ni­cally pro­fi­cient with­out any soul in their music, so can a pho­tog­ra­pher take life­less, but tech­ni­cally per­fect, photographs.

With­out wax­ing too poetic, it was really fun to meet Dovid and Melanie, to have a lit­tle bit of time to get to know them, to have that moment in their lives and to try to cap­ture it all in a way that is authen­tic and beau­ti­ful.  I hope that I’ve achieved that for them, and that my pho­to­graphic life will con­tinue to be filled with inter­est­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties and tremen­dously tal­ented people.