If music be the food of love, play on...
Duke Orsino:
If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
Twelfth Night Act 1, scene 1, 1–3
And play on indeed... The power of music is well established and the grip that it has hold over us all is experienced frequently. Be it the memories that are evoked or the physiological effects induced, sometimes in a very extreme way as hormones are released in a sudden, unexpected burst into your circulating blood.
So why is it that most photographers, social or commercial ignore this extremely powerful tool, or even worse, misuse it and in turn have it work against them. I have seen it happen rather a lot.
There is some serious science here. And, what’s more, it is a very quiet field in terms of further investigation. Which in itself is astounding...
When you last created a slideshow of images - whether family or for professional use - Did you add music to it? If so, why?
The most likely answer is you wanted to give the show a personality, gravitas to evoke whatever mixture of emotions you wanted to highlight in the series of images. This is nothing new and countless millions are spent every year by marketing teams to get the same effect from their images - moving or still.
So, if it is that affective when viewing images - why would we think it wouldn’t be as, if not more effective when creating them. Yes you may slap on some music and in most cases it will be a rough compilation to achieve a mood.
But could we achieve so much more if we learned to use music in the same way that we have learnt to use light?
That is the question I am looking to answer - or at the very least, start paving the road that may eventually lead to the answer. And, who knows - a whole new edge to our work.
Read on and get involved - You know you want to.... Click to read on.
In this series of articles, I really want to look deeply into exactly how powerful a tool music can be within the many sectors of our industry. Power for good as well as its more destructive potential if used badly, or when used with little, to no thought, but simply to break the silence. And, more importantly, Is music just as important a part of your shoot as the camera, the lighting and you? And if it is - how exactly do we start to use it effectively when it is something that is probably outside most of our comfort zones?
We pretty much all choose our music for mood already anyway. And there is good reason for doing so - it works...
I have seen many extremes of the power that a good, or bad choice of music can have on a shoot in both the social and commercial sectors. And many of the effects less noticeable in between. It has been these observations and then subsequent experimentation that has led me to start this series.
I don’t want this to be a one way thing either - It’s potentially too important an issue for just my opinion. If I am right and music can have such a profound effect over what we are trying to achieve visually. It’s a whole new learning curve and not one that I have seen a great deal of material on. That’s not to say that there isn’t any - Just that my eyes have not have the luck of seeing it with the exception of a few scientific publications (links at the end if you’re interested).
I’m going to start this series - and end part 1 of it, with two lists. The first is an album that I know works and works extremely well when doing early test / head shots for wannabe female models. It also works with pretty much any shoots involving young women where any increase in their self confidence is needed. It’s cheesy once you actually listen to all the lyrics - but when you are shooting, they are not listening consciously to the lyrics, but they seem to be sinking in and having a very positive effect. I have even had one quite shy young lady mention after the shoot that she loosened up and started really enjoying the shoot when I replaced her iPod selection that she had brought with her, with this album. And the resulting work turned from potentially usable - to stunning. All the links are to tracks on iTunes, so you can have a preview of each track if you wish. Personally, I think it’s a great album on its own and gives me a bit of a lift too - but in the studio or on location it’s a very, very useful album to have to hand when needed!
The second is a very quick questionnaire for the more interactive of you... Listed are a number of different types of shoots - I’d really appreciate it if you could enter one track and the artist that you think will ‘just work’ for the shoot described - or not at all if that’s what you think. It’s all anonymous and the resulting data will be interesting - And yes, I will publish it and any trends / conclusions that come from it... Only remotely identifiable information I would like is the country you live in, your gender and an approximation of your age. That’s it...
Part two will be within the next week or so, schedule allowing, when hopefully I will have some of the data collected. If you’re interested in seeing how and where this goes, please send a link out to as many people as you can think of who might also be interested and of course, socially bookmark the hell out of the articles as they come along... The more input we can get, the better the chance of something useful coming out of this little experimental exercise.
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