Music To Photograph Girls By

I'm afraid when I wrote that title I had a flashback to an Austin Powers movie; pelting about with a motor-driven Nikon F, dressed in a blue velvet jacket. Then I told myself to behave...

I have a stereo system in my studio to play music during photo shoots. It is a variable asset, having included components from a number of older systems. At any one time you can find items from the 1960's through to the 2010's. They frequently break down and I take them into the repairman...he welcomes me with open invoice book. When it all works well...or works at all.. I can supply suitable music for many genres of subject. And a lot of the models will bring their own dance music on little digital storage thingies. This is fine - if they are used to dancing to a particular piece of music they will be far better moving or posing to it than to the generic tunes I have.

That's dancers. Portrait sitters get the generic material but I have a steady soothing sort of choice for them. It's not exactly elevator music but it does go up and down. You can get a certain amount of dignity from people when you play classical music - even if it is just the Andre Rieu sort. And dignity means cooperation in many cases - people feel in control and valued.

For other shoots; tabletop, product, art copy, or costume I just let the radio play and take what comes. The ethnic radio shows are a lot of fun as I cannot understand most of them and don't know what's coming next.

How about field work? Well, weddings always had their own music; " Here Comes The Bride " followed by " There Goes The Bride " and " What The Heck Just Happened? ". " A Hunting We Will Go " often followed, so I used to take a small fox horn. Many fleeing brides can make surprisingly good time, veil and all. It takes a good pack of hounds to catch them.

Landscapes are generally away from music systems so it pays to take your own music. I don't have earbuds ( You can get them at Wanderlust in Hay Street Mall ) but I do remember a lot of tunes and I can whistle. A good whistler can entertain themselves far from civilisation and a bad one can clear a scenic view vantage point of other photographers quite quickly. The " William Tell Overture " does it for me, especially if I stop every now and then to shout " Hi-Yo, Silver, Away! ".

I don't photograph food, but I see that many very artistic photographers do it well. Perhaps they have music to set the mood - " I'm A Little Teapot " or " Bye Bye Cherry Pie ".

Animal portraits? Would sounds distract the subjects or soothe them? Must ask Alex Cearns.