Monthly Archives: July 2011

Commentary, Ideas, Photography and Music

Music and Photography: Technique and Interpretation

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(I accidentally published this draft post earlier today while doing some site maintenance. Shortly afterwards a friend contacted me to say that he had composed a response… only to find that the article had disappeared when he finished writing. My apology! Even though the article is not perhaps final – for example, the title is not quite right for the content – I have resurrected it. I intend this to be part of a longer series of posts.)

There have been and are quite a few photographers who also have backgrounds in music, and in quite a few cases these individuals could have had – or actually did! – have careers in both fields. The story of Ansel Adams supposedly making a choice between being a photographer or a pianist is well-known, and there are plenty of other examples. I don’t presume to put myself in the same category as Adams, but I’m also one of these people.

When I talk with other photographers who either share this dual background or who are aware of the number of other photographers who do, the conversation sometimes turns to the question of why this is the case. What points of contact are there between the practice of music and the practice of photography? The differences seem to me to be quite obvious. Clearly one medium deals primarily with sound and the other with visual images. In addition – and I think this is even more significant – music uses the element of time in a way that photography rarely can.  Photographers almost never tell you in what order you must view photographs – though they may suggest – nor do they insist that you move on to the next image after some specified interval of time. While the photographer may intend for you to follow a particular path through some images, there is no way to ensure that you do… and you probably don’t! But the musical composer relies completely on controlling the flow of events in time. It is emphatically not OK to switch sections of a piece and so forth.

So, what is similar?

I think that there are several points of contact between music and photography. I have no illusion that I can say everything there is to say about this in one post, so let me start with a single very basic idea having to do with the relationship between technique and interpretation or expression. Continue reading Music and Photography: Technique and Interpretation →

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Mount Gibbs, Frozen Pond, Morning

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Mount Gibbs, Frozen Pond, Morning
Mount Gibbs, Frozen Pond, Morning

Mount Gibbs, Frozen Pond, Morning. Yosemite National Park, California. June 19, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Dawn light on the snow-capped summit of Mount Gibbs above a frozen pond, Yosemite National Park.

This small pond is perhaps familiar to visitors to Tuolumne Meadows and Tioga Pass, though more likely with a different appearance. Here, early on a cold morning on the day after Tioga Pass opened for the season, the pond is still mostly frozen and it is surrounded by deep snow banks. The summit of Mount Gibbs is just touched by the first morning light as it passes through clouds over the Sierra crest.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | LinkedIn | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.

Photographs: Nature, Photographs: Northern California, Photographs: Sierra Nevada, Photographs: Yosemite

Mammoth Peak and Kuna Crest, Overflowing Tuolumne River

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Mammoth Peak and Kuna Crest, Overflowing Tuolumne River
Mammoth Peak and Kuna Crest, Overflowing Tuolumne River

Mammoth Peak and Kuna Crest, Overflowing Tuolumne River. Yosemite National Park, California. June 19, 2011. © Copyright G Dan Mitchell – all rights reserved.

Mammoth Peak and the Kuna Crest loom above as the Tuolumne River overflows its banks and floods surrounding meadows on a frosty spring morning, Yosemite National Park.

As I drove from Lee Vining Canyon over Tioga Pass and toward the Tenaya Lake area early in the morning, I came to the Tuolumne River where it passes under the bridge beneath the highway in the Tuolumne Meadows area. Just at about this moment the sun was rising high enough to begin to warm the frost covered meadow, at least the parts of it that were not flooded by the high water of the Tuolumne. Overnight it had risen almost to the level of the bridge and was so high that after passing under the bridge a small portion split off and headed into the trees to the right of the main branch. In a few weeks this flooded area and its reflecting surface will be gone, and there will just be a meadow and people will hike though it.

The backlight comes across the shoulder of Mammoth Peak, the high point near the end of the long snow-covered ridge of Kuna Crest, which runs parallel to Lyell Canyon toward Donohue Pass and the Sierra Crest.

G Dan Mitchell Photography | Flickr | Twitter (follow me) | Facebook (“Like” my page) | LinkedIn | Email
Text, photographs, and other media are © Copyright G Dan Mitchell (or others when indicated) and are not in the public domain and may not be used on websites, blogs, or in other media without advance permission from G Dan Mitchell.