The talent program for young conductors from, or based in, Norway (Dirigentløftet/Talent Norge/Sparebankstiftelsen) recently hired me to make new portraits of their current roster of talents.
The sessions were held at Sentralen in Oslo. Even with such a cool location, it was still a real challenge to make one location work with no less than 10 distinctive individuals.
Here are a few samples from our chamber music like sessions.
I got to witness and photograph the legendary Finnish conductor and composer Leif Segerstam at work on Friday night. He has been in Trondheim this week conducting both the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra and the Trondheim Sinfonietta. I'm on sick leave from playing at the moment, so I didn't actually get to play under his leadership in the orchestra, which is sad of course but such is life. I'm happy that I have another artistic outlet to turn to when playing isn't an option.
He is quite a unique figure in the music business, in almost every possible way. We might all think that we're special and highly personal in the way that we “conduct” ourselves. However, in Leif Segerstam we may have met our master.
The lighting at the venue was less than ideal for photography, which meant both strange shadow patterns and absurdly high ISO-values. The light was mainly focused on the conductor's hair and not his face. Problem? Yes. Artistic opportunity? Could be.
It took me a while to decide how to best bring these images to life, but I ultimately decided to go for a desaturated look and feeling. The lighting was basically harsh spotlights in front and multicoloured stage lights at the back of the ensemble setup. I could have gone for a black and white edit of course, but I liked this silvery “in between”-look. The facial expressions and the “human patina” come to life in this way, in my opinion. Like the “Segerstam-way”, it's a personal artistic choice on my part bringing my take on the occasion to the viewers.
For this shoot, I wanted to test two camera setups. I brought my own Sony A7RIII and a Sony A9ii-loaner. The lenses were primarily the 24-70mm f2.8 GM and the 70-200 f2.8 GM. I did also fire off some shots with my Sigma Art-lenses (85 and 135mm). I'm not the biggest fan of zoom lenses, but this time I wanted to see if my feelings on the matter could be proven wrong. Preliminary verdict: The A9ii is significantly better than the A7RIII in these kind of conditions, giving me cleaner files with no apparent banding issues (which is the main reason for this test). Zoom lenses, well, great for versatility but the ISO-values at f2.8 compared to f1.4-1.8 are hard to swallow. Maybe an A9ii for fast paced performances in low light and the Leica SL2 for those high resolution and high fidelity portraits and personal projects? Dreaming is allowed, right?!
Anyway, I'm glad that I had the opportunity to experience Maestro Segerstam and to do some gear testing this weekend.
Ole
I had one piece off in last week’s concert programme, so I took the opportunity to make some test shots with my current camera setup. I found myself almost instantly limited by a few factors, such as a combination of access and focal range, but in the end I’m quite pleased by the results that these limitations yielded.
For this kind of scenarios I’m currently shooting with a Sony A7RIII and lenses ranging from 24 to 400mm. I’m primarily a prime lens shooter (whenever I can). I find that prime lenses give the subject more character, and subsequently me more artistic opportunities to express that character. One is of course limited to a fixed focal range, but as seen in these images I think that with a little ingenuity that is rather a creative opportunity rather than exclusively a crippling limitation.
Most of the images seen here were captured with a Sigma Art 135mm-lens for the Sony FE-mount system, either in full frame or in crop sensor format to gain a little more reach. To be as unobtrusive as possible, not disturbing the rehearsal process, I positioned myself quite far back on stage and mostly out of sight. This meant that I couldn’t get the usual close ups of the conductor, but ended up doing sort of “environmental action portraits” instead. This resulted in a combination of a cinematic(ish) view of the stage along with the subject separation and compression that you get using a telephoto lens.
I chose to incorporate light reflections of a grand piano and a Wagner tuba to hopefully create some depth and definition to the images. The edit is also centred around the main subject, making her mental and visual connection with the musicians of the orchestra as apparent as possible.
You probably know by now that I absolutely love my Leica cameras, but i have to admit that the Sony system really shines in this kind of scenario. Great dynamic range and autofocus capabilities are pretty essential for shooting in dim/contrasty locations with this much movement. I would love to try the Sony A9ii with the behemoth 400mm f2.8 at some point, that should be pretty amazing for this kind of stuff.
But for now: “Practice, practice, practice..”
Ole
There is no doubt a lot of seriousness and focus involved in making music together at a high level, but every once in a while you capture a bit of off the cuff comedy.
Ole
My orchestra, The Trondheim Symphony Orchestra & Opera, is soon leaving home base in Norway for a tour of South Korea. I’ll be doing double duty as co-principal of the viola section and tour photographer for the duration of this trip. The images will primarily be delivered to and distributed by the communications office of the orchestra, but I will also try to update my own blog with pictures and some accompanying text. I hope that you will enjoy following us as we head to Asia!
Here are some behind the scenes moments from our concert in Trondheim last night.
Ole
Good evening from Berlin,
Returning to the apartment from a rather spectacular performance at the aforementioned Philharmonie, I started thinking about the need to express oneself artistically and the process of creating.
Why photography? A legitimate question. “You’re a musician, not a photographer.” That’s true, and yet I play and talk “in pictures”. So then, why not take actual images as well. Our life is very much a sensory experience, and that is what I’m trying to bring to life whatever the expressive outlet might be. Sound for a classical musician often starts with lines and dots on a piece of paper, which is pretty uninteresting for both the performer and the listener if it wasn't for the interpretive possibilities of those signs. The same can be said of photography, it’s basically just about the interplay between light and shadow. But when brought to life in a single frame, it can yield wonderful results.
The thing with creating music is that you spend endless hours, if not years, practising and preparing for something that is “lost the moment it’s created”. When the note is played, it’s gone (if not recorded of course). That’s both the magic of a live performance, but also kind of a sad fact if you ask me. Photography is on the other hand something entirely different, it’s about capturing and holding on to that moment. Keeping a record of whatever happened, no matter the significance of that moment.
Going back to music for a moment. Like I said, I just returned for an orchestra concert at the Philharmonie. The Berlin Philharmonic played Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony conducted by Daniel Harding. He conducted the very first concert I ever played with a professional orchestra, close to 20 years ago. Conducting no less than a symphony by Mahler. That was a very special experience for a young music student, being thrust into the overwhelming world of Gustav Mahler without knowing how to make heads or tails of playing in an orchestra. Much because of this experience, Mahler’s music has a very special place in my heart. There’s no record of this, it’s just in my memory and again it is all about conveying and understanding human feelings.
Photography has in a way completed my need for holding on to moments, so that music can stay fleeting and magical in its own right.
Music and photography, two quite different ways of communicating human feelings, but at the same time very complementary looking at the big picture.
Bis später,
Ole
Seeing music.