Colnets removing the last vinyl panel

Colnets begin the deconstruction of the false wall. We are reusing the wood for the protective screening in the show rooms affected during the emergency building works.

This season visitors will be able to walk right in to the room, across the carpet, to test how the heat mat (that was introduced during the trial to control the relative humidity) underneath will cope with 90,000 pairs of feet trampling over it.  Except that it won’t the real carpet you’ll be walking on, but we think you won’t be able to tell the difference.

A birds eye view of the eyemat team at work

The chaps from ‘eyemats’ were here on Thursday to photograph the Reynolds Room carpet.  They will produce a mat with an exact photograph of the carpet on it, showing every detail you would see looking at the authentic carpet.  This will be laid on top of the heat mat in the Reynolds Room in place of the genuine article.  Unlike the real thing the eyemat will withstand all our visitors’ feet walking over it.  To find out more about eyemats please visit their website, http://www.conservation-flooring.co.uk/

Lining up the shot

Jayne and Rosamund, textile conservators from the National Trust’s Textile Studio in Norfolk, were at Knole on Monday and Tuesday to take down and roll three of the tapestries in the Spangled Bedroom. 

The Conservation Team lend a hand to get the tapestry safely off the wall.

They have come down in order to protect them during the building work.  To find out more about the tapestries click on this link: http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/130082.2.

Lisa, Melinda, Lucy, Sarah and Emily

Do you listen to music when editing photographs? I do and it certainly varies my mood and the way I edit photographs. Specially when I’m in the wrong mood I can get really mad or in a bad humour (not to speak how the photographs will end!!)

When editing weddings I need to be surrounded by intrumental music, something soft and warm. That’s why, I apologize to my work-mate when I was editing my first wedding in the UK and didn’t stop listening to the same music. It’s beautiful, but after the 100th time you hear it, it starts to be a bit repetitive, I know…

But music is much more than the mood. Music adds meaning, leads you through a path and, sometimes, it also helps to tell a story.

When I started posting photographs on my flickr, I always posted music with them, a simple link, a song that would go with it and maybe, would add a special mood. Of course it was my favourite music and it showed the way I was feeling that day. I even ended creating a photograph for a specific song.

A while ago, when I started with my research on photography in motion, a friend gave me a device he had created for my camera so it shot every “x” seconds. And I created a video-portrait (normally people use those things to shoot at the sky or a flower for hours… I wanted to make a portrait with it) I wanted it to be a portrait. Because, you know, I’m a portrait photographer

(this was made two years ago, I would have done it VERY different now but hey, it’s there, it’s part of my work, let’s use it)

The music I used was Breathe me by Sia (I love that song) and it drastically changes the mood in the video. While I was just “posing” and changing my face expression, music adds a very powerful meaning.

That made me think about photographers who work with music and the way they combine music and images.

That same year I came across someone who loves (L.O.V.E.S) U2, hence I discovered a lot of the work of Anton Corbijn (creator of some of the videos and photographs of U2) and his film Control. It’s another example of the combination of music and images, photography and sound. (And it’s been a while that I wanted to talk about it in our Filming Photography section)

My question is… how much do you use music when editing? How influential it is in your photography? Is your photography influenced by music/music photographers? and, finally, have you ever created a music-photography combination project?

Maybe because of the possibility of HD video recording with photographic cameras, but I’ve discovered an increasing tendency to artistic videos.

Estúpida Erikah from conrad roset on Vimeo.

(This is a music video for a catalan musician. It’s in catalan, my mother tongue, so you won’t understand much, but the illustrator, Conrad Roset, creates a complete image of the story narrated in the song, very beautifully.)

Documentaries, music videos, films, stories… or just a compilation of images, of photographs with motion and life. They create amazing pieces of art.

The Carpenter from Dimitris Ladopoulos on Vimeo.

We like photography, we do photographs, but video, cinema, came after photography, and, as we try to see and appreciate sometimes on this blog, films are nothing but photography in motion.

Summer feelings from sebastien montaz-rosset on Vimeo.

During the whole film, despite the great soundtrack and – of course – dialogues, silence prevails. It’s the photography that tells us the stories of life at court, of the life of a woman in search of her identity, with her virtues and vices, her desires and delusions.

In addition to the movie, who could not be enchanted by Annie Leibovitz photographs for Vogue Magazine?

I spoke to a friend who is into music and poetry, he explained that back in the seventies and the eighties there was a proliferation of panjabi music resulting in new trends being set – the reason for this was that most artists could read and write panjabi and their command of the language was such that they understood the poetry behind the words and the songs. As a result of this and also striving to be modern and developing a sound that would fit into the western music scene, new music and sounds were created. This is still the case today where music from this era is still being played at various clubs, weddings and venues throughout the country.

The problem that we now have, are the new musicians, most of whom struggle with the panjabi language on all fronts, writing, reading and speaking. To illustrate this, listen to some music from the last five years and you will see what I mean – they are just one or two liners with no meaning and depth. Worst thing is that these new panjabi artists, most of whom cannot read and write panjabi – sing their songs written in the english script as a result further corrupting the beautiful language with the incorrect pronunciation of panjabi words and letters.

On top of this and what I can only see as making matters worse for Bhangra is that they are trying to make the panjabi language fit into and sound black/Afro-Caribbean – thus corrupting that beautiful culture, Afro-Caribbean.

Black music is fantastic and the rhythms are just bewildering – An african friend of mine tried to teach me the moves, instead I ended up doing what I can only describe as the equivalent of a belly flop in a swimming pool.

I therefore appeal and say to the new panjabi bhangra musicians – that you are the ones that can make a huge difference to people lives and that you have responsibility to the music and the panjabi culture as a whole. Therefore if you are serious do it properly – learn the language its meaning and its depth – all successful artists across the world if you study them are rich in their culture and language – regrettably I am seeing a decline of this within and on the panjabi music scene.

I am a professional photographer passionate about photography and social welfare issues – wisephotons – manipulating light to inspire – www.wisephotons.net