My grandpa inspired me musically growing up. We use to listen to old jazz 45’s on his turntable and talked about how music used to be. He would often sit and play traditional jazz numbers on the piano, and taught me how to follow his piano playing on his drum kit he later gave me. From then on, I became a musician myself, and I plan to pass it on to the next generation like he did for me. I think it’s truly amazing how music can live on and how everyone can relate in one-way or another through music. When given the chance to go to New Orleans for a nine-day photo essay, I new it would be my goal to show that in a series of work, and to successfully document the movement of music from generation to generation.
For this project, there was a lot of pre-work that needed to be done. People needed to be contacted, photo shot lists needed to be made, and deciding on what equipment was necessary for a nine-day photo essay in a place that felt like the surface of the sun. I was fortunate enough to have a friend that use to live in New Orleans and gave my some advice and some contacts to look up when I was there. One of those was Ben Jaffe, the bassist for the Preservation Hall Society Band. I e-mailed Ben about three weeks prior to the trip, but didn’t hear back from him until the night before we left to go back home. Even though, I was fortunate to meet up with Ben 2 hours before we needed to drive to the airport and did a quick photo shoot with him. Talk about your buzzer beater, and I was also able to get some of the best images from the shoot for my essay.
When coming up with a photo set list, I had a lot of ideas going through my head. I knew I wanted to capture some live shots, either in a venue or on the street, but I also knew that I wanted to set up some shots as well to try and stray away from your typical cliché band photo. I also felt that it would be important to show music without even having an instrument in the photo. I wanted to be able to construct an image that you could look at and just sense the feel of music, specifically jazz through that image. Incorporating my own personal style was important as well. Home in Minnesota, I’m tightly connected with the local music scene and photograph a lot of the Twin Cities local bands. From photographing them, I have developed a style that I like playing with deep shadows, contrast, texture and using a nice mix of clean and dirty to show off the characteristics of the band. Having that style, my goal was to tie that in with the photographs I was going to be making in New Orleans. So, I brought with me a 90mm tilt shift lens, which I used consistently throughout my essay, about 3 Canon 430EX Speed lights, and my Canon 5D for my project. It was a very portable set up, which allowed me to get in many different places very easily to construct my images.
Bourbon St. is where I spent most of my time shooting. The whole street was lined with Jazz clubs blaring their music through the P.A.’s. One venue that really intrigued me was Fritzel European Jazz Club. The bar had all the characteristics I was looking for, and the band and staff that worked there was so generous to me and allowed me full access to photograph in their club. Some of my favorite images also came out of that jazz club.
After the nine days were up, I felt confident that I was able to successfully document the movement of jazz through the different generations of musicians that where performing in New Orleans at the time. There was some shots I wanted to get but didn’t, and there were some shots I got that I hadn’t earlier planned on making. I think that’s the way it goes sometimes when making a series of work in a given time frame, but just like music was handed down to me from my grandfather, I hope that these images will also inspire the next generation and will keep this music alive.
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