This is Part 2 of 2 of a guest blog post by Phil Mackenzie, a photographer based in Pennsylvania. You can find Part 1 here.

Lessons learned. (Stuff you should remember from the first part)

We examined the two of the most obvious features of music and images last time. There’s one more feature that sometimes even eclipses the first two. And we’ll also look at two more subtle, yet decidedly distinctive, elements of music that also have counterparts in photography. Let the beat go on!

Rhythm. (The Stuff That Drives the Universe)

Rhythm defines life. Your heart, your breath, the engine of a car, the turn of the earth, the orbit of the planets; they all exist and perpetuate their own rhythms. The world is a colossal mess of rhythm. As I write this, you can watch the legendary aerial photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand’s film Home on YouTube. It’s also airing on the National Geographic Channel in all of its HD glory. Try watching it without the sound. You’ll see rhythm with your eyes. Almost two hours of it. It’s amazing just how much rhythm life on its own. If you want an even more in-your-face film, there’s also the incredibly provocative collaboration called Koyaanisqatsi between filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola and composer Philip Glass. Regardless of any artistic judgment of the music (Glass, like bagpipes, doesn’t have many indifferent listeners), the combination of the constant pulsing music against the rhythm of the visual imagery that merely depicts everyday events such as traffic patterns in a city or highway is enough to entrance you for quite some time.

Those examples, of course, are motion pictures. Their inherent rhythm comes from the differences between still each of the 24 still images that fly past you every second. By contrast, a photograph’s rhythm can only be based on one image and the patterns and light within the frame. So how can it possibly achieve the same effect?

In a song, if you took away the rhythm, the melody becomes merely an organized pattern of pitches. If you have any doubt about the power of a rhythm, just tell someone to tap out just the rhythm to the melody of a song without telling you what it is, and try to guess what it is, just from the rhythm. It’s easier than you might think. Try it a few times and you’ll see that rhythm is almost, if not equally, as distinctive and as identifiable as melody.

In a photograph, the visual rhythm is what makes your eye move around the image. Your composition, framing, whatever you want to call it. It’s all about controlling the path the eyes take around the photograph. This is easy to see in images of either abstract subject or repeating subjects, such as these:

Notice how your eye follows a fairly predictable pattern around the images. For instance, in this more abstract image, the human eye is generally drawn to the lighter areas of an image first. Your eye probably starts in the top third of the image, and then it’s easy to follow the line of the main object down to the bottom, then come back up around in a big circle, exploring the blurry background along the way.

The same patterns can be true of images involving people as well. As humans, we’re generally drawn to another face initially, then your eye moves around the image. For instance:

Your exact eye pattern might vary, but it probably started on her face, continued down her nicely lit hands and her right arm, back up to her shoulder, and back to her face. Instinctively darker areas tend to be given less visual priority. Certainly you might continue to examine those, but not until after your eyes have made the “light loop” from her face, down in a clockwise motion, and back up to her face again.

You have have also noticed that some images seem to make your eyes feel like they’re stuck in molasses, whereas others make your eyes dart around as if there’s no tomorrow. Both elements that we’ve discussed before (i.e. melody and harmony) have a great deal to do with the speed at which your eyes move through an image. A black-and-white, grainy image with a solitary gaze might make your eyes more considerate and willing to spend the extra time to examine every detail. This image by Seshu is a wonderful example of an image that will slow down your eyes:

Notice how he has evened up the contrast as well. Both areas of highly saturated color or sharp contrast can increase the visual rhythm. Scarlett Lillian’s work is highly color-rhythmic, as is a great deal of fashion photography. Just pick up an issue of Vogue or Marie Claire, or even Brides magazine. Those images are designed to excite you, and what better way than to make your eyes dart around areas of super-saturated color, bright highlight and dark shadows? More contrast, faster rhythm. Less contrast, slower rhythm. Neither one is better than the other, they all depend upon the mood you wish to convey in the image. Wedding photographers might not be able to consciously compose each image due to the mere volume of shots taken (I know I average well over 2500 images for a wedding), but you can begin to see what your natural visual rhythm is by examining your portfolio. Find the images you love and feel their rhythm with your eyes. Make sure they complement each other. Variety is the spice of life, but it’s important that your portfolio’s visual rhythm not contradict itself; a bright, snappy color-saturated image might seem out of place in the middle of an ocean of brooding black-and-white images.

Dynamics. (More Stuff That Sizzles)

Comparing aural dynamics to visual dynamics is an obvious one. In music, dynamics are simply the “loud” factor. A song can be either loud, soft, or optimally a mix of the two. If a piece of music doesn’t have much dynamic range, it’s usually because it’s serving a specific purpose. A trumpet fanfare, for instance, is loud and stately. And usually short, because it serves only to introduce royalty or some other dignitary. Whereas a softer more introspective dynamic is wonderful for a few minutes to lull our ears in, but after a while of static dynamics, it’s just too much of one thing.

High-key and low-key images are probably already leaping to mind in comparison to musical dynamics. Both high-key and low-key images are ones that are thus named precisely because of their distinct lack of visual dynamic. A high-key image only has one “visual volume”: loud. The opposite for a low-key image. The two below are typical, though not over-the-top, versions of high-key and low-key images.

Generally speaking, the most visually appealing photographs have as wide a dynamic range as possible. Though simplified, this is the basic premise of the zone system that was propagated by Ansel Adams. Almost every one of his images was exposed and developed in order to use the fullest possible dynamic range. None of these exposure methods is better than the other; it’s simply a matter of the photographer’s intent in making the image. Be warned, though, that whether you tend to shoot high-key, low-key, or for the fullest dynamic possible, that the eye has a saturation point with the same style of image. Imagine only listening to one singer for the rest of your life. Variety is the spice of life, and of photos, my friends.

Timbre’s Signature. (Photography DNA)

The traditional symphony orchestra has four different “families” of instruments: strings, winds, brass, and percussion. Those, in turn, are each divided into more instruments that vary in their range, from low bass up to very high treble. Each instrument has its own unique sound; this is how your ears differentiate an oboe from a violin or a flute from a trumpet. It’s the timbre (if you’re reading along out loud, you say it tam•ber or tim•ber), the quality of a sound as distinct from its pitch or intensity. So all other things being equal, how can you tell it’s a woman’s voice as opposed to a man’s voice? The timbre.

In a larger sense, when you are able to identify a composer or songwriter by their work, it’s a form of timbre. Usually it’s called their “style.” A Mozart symphony sounds much different than Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker”; a John Williams film score (Harry Potter) is different than a Hans Zimmer score (Pirates of the Caribbean); Carrie Underwood’s songs are different than those by Sara Bareilles. You get the idea.

Close your eyes and think of a black-and-white image of Yosemite. Who’s the photographer? An Ansel Adams print might be one of the easiest photographs in the world to identify. It’s also relatively easy to distinguish a Richard Avedon photograph from an Annie Leibovitz image. Their own style, their “photographic timbre” is present in every one of their photos. Just as the masters of musical composition and songwriting use characteristic aural nuances in their work, photographers also have formulas they have developed over years or decades, and they tend to follow them religiously. It is not only advisable to develop your own style of shooting and working with light, it’s a necessity.

What’s interesting about the current state of the wedding photography industry is that a photographer’s “timbre” or “style” seems to come equally as much from his or her personality and business skills than his or her portfolio. As better camera technology continues to obliterate the line between professional and amateur, and the same sets of Photoshop actions are used across the entire globe, it’s becoming harder and harder to visually distinguish yourself.

It is now, quite possibly more than ever, crucial for both you and your photos to have a distinctive personality. Strive to cultivate and develop your own style (see David duChemin’s insightful new book “Within the Frame”) so that your clients can tell your work from someone else’s. Don’t lose the personality. But combine a sparkling personality and a killer photographic style? You could rule the world. Or at least your own corner of it.

Coda: Putting the pieces back together.

Music is constructed in a more-or-less consistent manner. Generally either a melody or a rhythm is composed first, followed by some basic harmony and then highlighting the climax or dramatic moments with some dynamic variation. Timbre is usually an ongoing consciousness, especially relating to the medium of composition. A composer always knows the instruments for which he or she is writing, and keeps their different timbres in mind while always staying true to his or her style, whether consciously or subconsciously.

As photographers, we work in much the same way whether we’re aware of it or not. We generally start with the subject, or at least the mood of the image we want to create. After considering the primary purpose of the image, we focus on the secondary elements to the subject; the visual harmony, rhythm, and dynamic. All the while, staying consistent to our own personal style, or timbre.

It has always been fascinating to me to read the thought processes of some of the great photographers while making an image. Annie Leibovitz has a new book called “At Work” that describes her experiences while capturing some of her most iconic images. Admittedly, not every photographer thinks about every element of an image while composing a frame. Sometimes it’s a oh-wow-grab-the-camera-and-hope-you-get-it shot, but more often than not we have more than a split second to think about how to compose the frame. The most important part of shooting might just be in the editing session. Look at the shots you’ve taken that catch your attention, that grab you, that sing to your eyes. Figure out what it is about them that grabs your eye. Is it the rhythm? Is it the visually interesting harmonic palette with which the image’s background is composed? Is it just that the subject (i.e. the melody) of the image is so powerful it trumps everything else and lets you get away with some technical imperfections?

Just as there are songs and concert music that have stood the test of time, and countless others that have had their time and faded into the background of culture, there are thousands of images taken for every one remembered and treasured. Your goal should be to tilt that balance in your own favor. See what your own magic formula is. How do you compose your visual melody? How do you capture the rhythm of the scene? If you don’t like the way you create harmony in an image, recognize that before the next time you press the shutter and change it. Try something new. Composers like Mozart, who could transcribe music already composed in his head, are rare. Most artists are much more like Beethoven: decided unsatisfiable, he would often scratch out entire pages of music that represented hours or days of work with berating notes to himself about how this page of music was garbage, and how he ever could have written such a horrid and elementary chunk of music.

As photographers we don’t deal in the same time frames as composers. Our decisions occur at a fraction of a second. Composers have as much time as they need to deliberately write every note, every rhythm, every harmony. We don’t have that luxury as the bride is walking back down the aisle toward us, or we see an incredible shot starting to materialize in front of our faces. More often than not, we grab the camera, raise it, and click the shutter in one swift motion without much thought. I would argue, however, that those photographers who take the extra second to think, to edit, and to be aware of their own visual composition abilities will only become the next generation of famous image-makers.

Know your images. Know your tendencies. Know what abilities you have to create an image that entrances and sings to your client’s eyes. If the elements all work in harmony, your song will be one from the heart. And your clients will love you for it.

As always, your comments below are welcome. Tell us how you inject elements of music into your photography.

This is a guest post by Phillip Mackenzie, a Pennsylvania-based wedding & portrait photographer.

When people hear that I have three degrees in music and I’m now turning to photography, they often give me a quizzical look and ask why I would make such a drastic change. I don’t think it’s all that drastic, in fact, images and music are far more intertwined in their compositions and affectations than you might think.

Imagine this.
You’re out somewhere and a song starts. The infectious beat creeps into your body and your foot starts to move involuntarily, tapping to the rhythm. Something deep and primal infects you, and when the song ends you just want to hear it again! Any music that ellicits this sort of reaction is “get up and dance” music. This is opposed to “sit down and shut up” music that tends to be more cerebral than emotional, and demands your utmost concentration and thought to understand, just like some photography.

Music is everywhere. And it dares you not to pay attention.
Music is one of the most powerful forces in existence, isn’t it? Plato thought so. For millennia, people have danced, kissed, fallen in love, cried, got angry about, even gone into battle to a soundtrack. There’s an immediate, gut-level reaction. For instance: you either love or hate bagpipes. I’ve never met anyone who was indifferent. (And if you are, I’d love to meet you!) If you love them, there’s no more rousing sound than the pipes and drums of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guard. If you detest them, you want to rip off your ears.

Images have power too.
Images can elicit the same gut-level reaction, be it positive or negative. Jill Greenburg’s series of portraits called “End Times” is provocative. Your opinion is immediate, strong, and gut-level. Has time ever escaped you as you’ve taken in an image? The same reason you can’t get a song out of your head is the same reason you can’t stop looking at a photograph. While I can’t really explain the magic “why” of everyone’s gut reaction, I can explain the “how.” When you hear a great song, you play it for your friends, tweet about it, make sure other people listen to it. When our clients see photos that sing to them, they can’t help but spread the word. All of a sudden that one photo (or more, hopefully!) can spread across the entire world like wildfire. If you create images that sing, they’ll do all the work for you. And here’s how to do it.

Break it down.
What was the last photo you saw? What do you remember? Did you feel great joy or desolation? Melancholy? A couple deeply in love with each other? Both music and photography have the ability to capture our emotions and put them into aural or visual form. They do it the same way, just using different vocabulary. Let’s look at the basic elements of music:

• Melody
• Rhythm
• Harmony
• Timbre
• Dynamic

These are the most obvious and affective elements of music, and they are all paralleled in photography. Today we’ll explore the first two, melody and harmony.

Hear the Melody, Be the Melody. (The Obvious, In-Your-Face Part)
When I mention a song to someone and they tell me that they don’t know it, I respond with “Oh, you know, the one that goes like this…” and then I hum or sing a few bars of the melody. Strictly speaking, the melody is the theme, the single most recognizable part of a piece of music. Usually it’s the first thing you recognize about a tune (sometimes it’s the rhythm, but more often than not you still can’t be sure until you hear the melody). Melodies are amazing creatures; they can carry emotion and meaning even without words. When there is a lyric, though, the melody serves as the structure by which we remember the words. Don’t believe me? Try to recite the lyric to your favorite song without thinking about the melody…it’s a challenge! It functions in the same way as the subject of your photograph. It is the most basic, in-your-face element of an image. Look at the following image for 5 seconds or so, then close your eyes and see what you recall about it.

I’ll bet the first thing you remember is the girl’s incredibly bright and engaging smile. You might also recall the supporting color palette, and the contrast her hair color makes against the grassy background. All of those background details play a supporting role to her face, particularly the smile. This is the difference between melody and harmony. While you can distinctly remember a melody, the harmony tends to collect itself into large blocks or swaths of color or texture. While her smile may seem distinct in your memory, you may just recall the generally bright green color surrounding her without the various yellow leaves, and you’re not likely to remember the exact position of her left hand or even how curly or straight her hair might be. Melody. It’s what you remember.

Harmony: The Enabler. (The Bricks and Mortar of Music and Images)
If the melody is what you remember, the harmony is what helps you remember it. It’s what enables the melody to live and sing to our ears. It’s the rest of the Sistine Chapel ceiling that isn’t God and Adam. It’s the parts of New York City that aren’t tourist attractions. It’s the rest of the cast of a movie or a musical. In one-man shows, there’s always a supporting character even if it’s just the actor doing a different voice or personality (think Smeagol/Gollum in The Lord of the Rings), or speaking to an inanimate object like Tom Hanks did to his volleyball in Cast Away.

If I think of my favorite song, I might not be able to remember specifics about the harmony, but I can remember the “chunks.” In fact, it’s often incredibly difficult to sing a tune without hearing the harmony (either externally or in your “inner” ear). All you have to do is watch the auditions for American Idol for 5 minutes (or even 30 seconds) and you’ll hear that it’s quite difficult, and for some, impossible, to sing something without an accompaniment. Any time Randy Jackson tells them that their singing was “pitchy,” it would probably have been better with someone playing the harmony. Then again, if everyone sounded good with the harmony behind them, karaoke wouldn’t be any fun!

Think of your favorite song. Can you hum the harmony? How much about it can you remember? A melody can be made or destroyed by the harmony. In photography, the harmony could be called many things: the background, visual palette, scene, or frame to name a few. It’s the stuff in the image that’s not your subject. For a bridal portrait, the harmony might be a bright, vibrant, out-of-focus background and a bouquet.

Getting even more specific, the subject might be so small as just a person’s eyes, and everything else, including the rest of their body, becomes secondary. A fine example is Joe McCurry’s famous “Afghan Girl” (if you don’t know it, Google it now)—her indescribably hypnotic eyes are without doubt the focal point of the image. But without the rest of the image – her clothing, the framing, the green wall in the background that oddly matches her eye color – her eyes aren’t nearly as spectacular. The melody might be her eyes, but the harmony is the rest of the image. Nothing in that photograph is unimportant. Every element is there as part of the melody or the harmony to support it. Her eyes sing in that photograph and draw you in to see more.

Stay Tuned.
In Part II, we’ll look at the other elements and how all of them work in collaboration to produce a truly memorable song or spectacular image.

I recently uploaded a few new clips onto the Raghasmusic.com site. Full disclosure: Dr. Krishna Raghavendra is my father-in-law and an obvious genius at the veena, his chosen instrument.

He will be releasing two CDs very shortly; Meditation and Nee Da Ma Da. Check them out!

Tip of the turban, well, um, to Turbanhead for this link:

“Split Magazine is an online music magazine for fans rock music in India. The e-zine includes everything from exclusive interviews with Indian and international rock bands to album, song and concert reviews — not to mention all the latest music news, gig alerts and free MP3 downloads.”

Got your headphones and want to groove to streamed music? No problem. Check out Split Radio.

I am often asked where I get the beautifully composed background music for the slide shows I produce for SAJA.

Well, wonder no more. Race to check out Dr. Krishna Raghavendra’s updated website at http://www.raghasmusic.com. Turn up your speakers to hear MP3 snippets from his various albums and tool around the MP3 player designed by Jeroen Wijering.

In the interest of full disclosure, I am married to one of Dr. Raghavendra’s daugthers. [grin]

“As custodians of our cultural heritage, Tablaonline™ seeks to use the web to create connections between listeners, musicians, and organisations to ensure that Indian classical music continues to flourish. Tablaonline™ hopes to encourage networking, partnering and education, as well as sharing our love for our musical tradition with all corners of the world.

For now, Tablaonline™ concentrates on Indian classical rhythm – the backbone of our music. It brings an insight into the personalities through exclusive interviews, profiles, video and audio clips of the great tabla players. In the future, we aim to widen our canvas to other Indian classical instruments as well as dance and vocal.”

One word – Rockin!

Via Quick Online Tips

“A group of Indian Bloggers living in different parts of the world. USA, UK and India got “United in Music” for a venture called BlogSwara to produce some music.”

The songs are here. The group’s blog is here.

I am listening to the “album” now – a mix of Tamil, Malayalam and Hindi songs. It’s clearly a very successful experiment. Looking forward to seeing future versions of it.

The Princeton Laptop Orchestra (PLOrk) with special guests Zakir Hussain, Pauline Oliveros, and So Percussion will perform on Tuesday April 4, at Princeton University’s Richardson Auditorium.

PLOrk is a new ensemble of 15 laptop’ers, each seated on a pillow with a 6-channel hemispherical speaker and a variety of control devices. This premiere performance at 8 p.m. will include works by Paul Lansky, Brad Garton, Curtis Bahn and Tomie Hahn, Dan Trueman, Scott Smallwood, Seth Cluett, Perry Cook and Ge Wang, with special guest performances by renowned tabla virtuoso Zakir Hussain, accordian legend Pauline Oliveros, and the hot percussion quartet So Percussion [who will be processing Hussain in real-time].

More information is available here. On a tangent, notice the students are all using Apple Macintosh computers.

“A positive mix of experimental, electronic, modern classical and blunted hip hop breaks to uplift and invigorate you.”

I have got absolutely nothing to do with this, but it sounds like a lot of fun. It’s Siddhartha‘s new baby.

Via Kiran Ahluwalia

Guitarist Rez Abbasi will be appearing at Joe’s Pub in celebration of his fourth CD as a leader, “SnakeCharmer.” This recording, to be released on February 1st, 2005, is the follow up recording to the critically acclaimed “Out Of Body,” of which DownBeat Magazine said, “Out Of Body should reaffirm Abbasi’s increasing stature within the modern jazz community, 4 Stars.” Abbasi will be joined at Joe’s Pub by Gary Versace on organ, Dan Weiss on drums, Kiran Ahluwalia on Indian vocals, Marc Mommaas on saxophone and Naren Budhakar on tabla and percussion. “Snake Charmer” will be available for the first time at the Joe’s Pub performance on January 15!

Making New York his home for the past fifteen years, Rez Abbasi is considered to be one of the foremost modern jazz guitar players in the world. With influences from the Indian sub-continent, Abbasi has developed a unique sound both as a composer and an instrumentalist. Abbasi has honed his skills with performances throughout the world including multiple tours in Europe, Canada, the U.S. and India/Pakistan. He has also performed and/or recorded with many jazz greats including, Grammy winner Ruth Brown, Peter Erskine (Weather Report), as well as Victor Lewis, Kenny Werner, Rick Margitza, Barre Phillips, DD Jackson, Tim Hagans, Marc Johnson, Billy Hart, Michael Formanek, Gary Thomas, Kiran Ahluwalia, Sandip Burman, Tony Malaby and a host of others. “Snake Charmer” is a vivid representation of Rez Abbasi’s eclectic influences and experiences.

Abbasi was born in South Asia and at age four relocated with his family to Southern California. Abbasi attended The University of Southern California and the prestigious Manhattan School of Music and further studied in India under master percussionist, Ustad Alla Rakha.