October 2008: Musical Notes

I have been to two concerts in the past month, more than I have been to in many years. Though similar music-wise, they were very different in style and delivery. The first was an Arlo Gutherie concert. It was bouncy and filled with memories and songs from years gone by. The time was filled with songs to tap your feet to and sing along with. The songs were stories from and about Arlo’s life -life with his dad, life during the protest turmoil of the Vietnam era, and life today. I left feeling satisfied, content, and quite honestly never gave the evening another thought.

Last night I went to a concert by another performer, Dougie MacLean. He is a Scot with a worldwide following. Not as famous as Arlo, but well known enough to travel the world filling small concert halls with appreciative fans. I didn’t know much of Dougie’s music but I had heard some of his music while in Scotland and have his double album, The Essential Dougie MacLean, on my computer and iPod

While Arlo didn’t encourage his audience to sing along, most of us did because we knew the songs. Dougie on the other hand actively encouraged his audience to join in his more complicated choruses. I could begin to sing along with Arlo’s songs simply because I had lived with them for so long. Dougie’s songs were far more difficult for me. (Those who know me know that my singing voice has been favorable compared to those from a cat when dropped in hot water and my dancing compared to the movements of a chicken just after its head has been cut off. In other words I love music and feel it in my bones, but I can throw an entire crowd off key and can’t move with any sort of rhythm.) Finally I stopped trying to sing along and just listened to Dougie and his guitar.

Both entertainers played to the audience and shared stories about their lives along with their songs. I enjoyed both concerts. The Arlo concert was like being with old friends sitting around talking about what we did and thought about the events of our youth. It was an evening with of “Remember when…”

The Dougie MacLean concert was harder for me. He is a great balladeer and songwriter. Arlo tells stories. Dougie sings poetry. Several times he told a wonderful story about a particular song. Then he would sing the song and I would expect to here the story in lyric verse but the song would be a poem rather than a narrative. I wanted to hear the song again because I missed so much the first time around. There was a depth to Dougie’s music, a feeling of the experience rather than a description of the event.

Arlo didn’t sing his signature song, “Alice’s Restaurant”. I missed that old friend. Dougie did sing his signature song “Caledonia”. It is a ballad written on a beach in France about how much he missed his native Scotland. While “Alice’s Restaurant” is classic, it is a story about an event in one person’s life. It is specific and unique to Arlo. Dougie’s lament is universal. It could be sung by anyone and still be real and true and unique. All of Arlo’s songs were about Arlo and his life. They were wonderfully written, fun to listen to and delightful to the ear- but all about Arlo. Dougie’s songs were also wonderfully written, fun to listen to and delightful. The difference for me is that Dougie’s songs could have been mine. His are universal. His are poetry surrounded by music. I will continue to listen to both musicians work. Arlo when I want fireside tales. Dougie’s when I want to think, reflect, and when I am missing Scotland.

Now what does all of the above have to do with Photography? There are photographs that are narrative, dynamic, and specific. These are often absorbed in one look. They are easily understood, specific to a location or event, and I don’t ever have to return to them. I appreciate them, enjoy when I do see them again but I have learned nothing from them beyond the first examination. I would love to have a photographic equivalent of “Alice’s Restaurant”. I would love to have an image that was a license to print money, one that caught the imagination of the world and was in constant demand. But when I look at the images in ODIN STONE, I realize that I am still seeing things in them. I recognize new nuances. As I look through the sequence of images new relationships appear.

While working on ODIN STONE I tried out new ideas (for me) or old ideas in new forms. Much like a musician seeks new rhythms and new ways of singing his songs, I looked for new ways to express what I was experiencing about Orkney, about myself. The original idea for ODIN STONE was to use both 5×12 and 5×7 mages. I always work with both formats so why not use both in the book. However, as we laid out the images we felt that to mix both would be like changing rhythms in the middle of a song. So we stayed with the 5×12 images but added some different types of images. There are three pinhole images and at least one soft focus image in this book. As you look at the work be aware of these nuances. I hope you will enjoy them and find them thought provoking.

Although I would love to make a commercially successful photograph like Arlo’sAlice’s Restaurant, I hope mine are more like Dougie’s songs: beautiful, quirky compositions, inviting you to examine them but not yielding all their secrets at the first look. Images that you want to continue looking at and find something new and universal in them. So they can be come your images, images you can relate to, and understand at a poetic level.