& çâÌæÚUæð´ ·¤è ¥ôÚU Îð¹Ùæ ÁæÚUè ÚU¹ð´ ¥ÍæüÌ ¥ÂÙð ÜÿØ ÂÚU ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´Ð ãæÚU Ù ×æÙð´, €UØô´ç·¤ ·¤æ× ·¤ÚUÙð âð ¥æÂ·¤ô ©gðàØ ·¤è Âýæç# ãôÌè ãñ ¥õÚU ÁèßÙ ·¤æ ¹æÜèÂÙ ÎêÚU ãôÌæ ãñÐ ÖÜð ãè ÁèßÙ ×ð´ ç·¤ÌÙè Öè ·¤çÆÙæ§ü €UØô´ Ù ¥æ°, çÁ™ææâæ ¥õÚU ©ˆâæã ÕÙæ° ÚU¹ð´Ð ŠØæÙ ÚU¹ð´, ÜÿØ ã×ðàææ ¥æÂ·Ô¤ Âæâ ãôÌð ãñ´ çÁ‹ãð´ ÂæÙð ·Ô¤ çÜ° ÂýØæâ ¥æÂ ·¤Öè Öè àæéM¤ ·¤ÚU â·¤Ìð ãñ´Ð

TANGENTS

Music and Photography

BY IHTISHAM KABIR
The great landscape photographer Ansel Adams who trained as a concert pianist in his youth often compared music and photography. "The negative is like a musical score, and the print is the musical performance" was his famous comparison. Adams' photographic prints were stunning. Perhaps it was this way of thinking that enabled him to create such memorable work.
One notion that Adams carried over from music was the presence of fine gradations of black and white tones in his photographs, akin to tones in music. He codified his approach in the Zone System which enabled photographers to retain precise tonalities of gray in photographs.
While today' s digital image files have replaced yesterday' s negatives, Adams' s aesthetic idea remains a forceful and persuasive one.
Sadly I have never found overt ways to borrow from the aesthetic pleasures of music to enrich my photography. I grew up with Tagore and Nazrul and later, along with rock and roll, I developed a taste for western classical music. But perhaps because I am not a musician I am unable to cross borders between music and photography. There is another problem: listening to (good) music consumes me to such an extent that it essentially prevents me from working creatively.
Nevertheless, the connection between music and photography continues to intrigue me. Recently, I was talking with Hasan Chandan, one of the best photographers of our land. Chandan, who finds a strong connection between music and photography, immediately pointed out some parallels between the worlds of music and photography. "Composition is fundamental to
both," he said, also pointing out the need for harmony and improvisation in both arts.
There are other parallels. Rhythm is an important part of music. In a photograph rhythm comes from repetitive patterns of light and dark and from textures - both important elements of photographic composition.
"What about the lyrics and the tune?" I asked. "To me, the lyrics correspond to the subject of a photograph while the tune corresponds to the composition," Chandan replied.
Developing the comparisons further, Chandan pointed out the similarities between the temporal organization of a piece of music (for example, alap, gat, etc) and the spatial organization of a photograph (for example, foreground, focus, background.)
As an example we talked about Beethoven' s Rondo Allegro, one of Chandan' s favourite pieces. Its beautiful tune is wrapped in a complex musical arrangement. I began to see how a piece like this can influence and feed the aesthetic sensibility of a creative person.
Chandan also brought up another point: that our five senses are so vivid, so alive, that the right creative work can cross boundaries between senses.
Ansel Adams articulated this thought nicely: "I can look at a fine art photograph and sometimes I can hear music."
As for finding my own connections between music and photography -who knows, maybe it will come to me one fine morning, just when I have stopped trying to find it!
www.facebook.com/tangents.ikabir