I’ve written here before how, in my 30-some-years as a photographer, my cameras have given me an excuse to be nosy, to see life in a way that sometimes makes me feel like I have a ticket for a show that others might miss.
I just returned from a week visiting my mother in Ohio. I go “back home” several times a year, and when I’m there Mom and I often visit the nearby Oberlin College campus and the school’s well-known and much-respected Conservatory of Music. When my sister, brother and I were growing up, our parents were both music teachers in public schools in Northern Ohio, and music filled our home. I was a trumpet player through high school, blessed with enough natural ability to be reasonably decent without having to apply myself or spend a lot of time practicing, but it wasn’t until I discovered photography that a creative fire really began to burn in me.
Walking around on the Oberlin campus this past week, there was no doubt in my mind that I was in an atmosphere where the young musicians were as passionate about their art as I am about mine. One afternoon when I was nosing around in the Conservatory building, a fire alarm went off. Even after the alarm was turned off and the all-clear was given that students could reenter the building, one musician strapped her heavy ‘cello case to her back and told her friends she’d carry her instrument with her to afternoon classes, just to be safe. Another evening, my mom and I attended a concert of the Oberlin Chamber Orchestra. Because Mom and I arrived an hour before the performance, I was in the empty concert hall when harpist Xiao Du was on stage, tuning. She graciously permitted me to make a few photographs.
Xiao Du was about to perform her art, while I was just practicing mine.
