I had a musician friend of mine post on his Facebook page that I was looking for subjects for a personal light painting project. I was delighted when Tanya Ekanayaka expressed an interest.
Tanya was born in Sri-Lanka and gave her first recital at the tender age of twelve. She’s also an acclaimed composer, contracted with Naxos Records, the world’s largest independent classical music record label. If that wasn’t impressive enough, Tanya holds a PhD in Linguistics and Musicology from the University of Edinburgh.
Since Tanya teaches at her alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, we had access to Reid Concert Hall and their grand piano for the light painting session.
I started with the “obvious” set up, from an angle that showed the pianist’s hands. When doing some light painting tests, I realised how reflective the top of the piano was. I decided the reflection of the piano strings should be an important part of the photographs.
I next worked a different angle, partly inspired by Arnold Newman’s famous photograph of Igor Stravinsky and the desire to show the piano strings and their reflections.
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