How thing sometimes just seem to happen… I walked by the entrance of the museum and ran into Wim van Zon, initiator of the Jazz Museum Rotterdam. After the usual “how are you” and stuff like that he asked me if was interested i filming and taking photo’s of some famous Dutch jazz musicians for DJAZZ.tv. Of course I was interested!
The concept was that six different photograhpers would interview and film selected musucians through the eye of a photographer as their point of view is different to a cameraman on film. Also we had to choose an iconic photo to inspire our set up.
I chose a Duke Ellington picture sitting behind the piano with only a spotlight on him. What inspired me on this picture was to see the vulnerabillity of a musician and the guts to open themselves up to an audience, as a matter of fact, people you don’t know, have never seen before and actually still don’t see as the theatre is completely dark as if you’re looking into a black hole.
So I chose my studio set up to be black and use only one spotlight a little from the side to create hard contrasts and keep the focus on the persons expression as they tell their story.
On Thursday the 18th of June I had the first five musicians in front of my camera. So interesting to talk to such a variety of personalities! Everyone with basically the same story to tell as I asked all of them the same questions, but all with a different vibe, so far apart that you wont be bored hearing the same concept over and over again. Also I had the privilege to interview and film Tineke Postma who won the prestigious Boy Edgar prize a week after I interviewed her!
The whole three day experience with all the wonderfull musicians was a real party. I hope to be invited for the kind of venues more often! Thank you Wim for inviting me!
Check out the photo’s at Photoshoot