Good evening from Berlin,

Returning to the apartment from a rather spectacular performance at the aforementioned Philharmonie, I started thinking about the need to express oneself artistically and the process of creating.

Why photography? A legitimate question. “You’re a musician, not a photographer.” That’s true, and yet I play and talk “in pictures”. So then, why not take actual images as well. Our life is very much a sensory experience, and that is what I’m trying to bring to life whatever the expressive outlet might be. Sound for a classical musician often starts with lines and dots on a piece of paper, which is pretty uninteresting for both the performer and the listener if it wasn't for the interpretive possibilities of those signs. The same can be said of photography, it’s basically just about the interplay between light and shadow. But when brought to life in a single frame, it can yield wonderful results.

The thing with creating music is that you spend endless hours, if not years, practising and preparing for something that is “lost the moment it’s created”. When the note is played, it’s gone (if not recorded of course). That’s both the magic of a live performance, but also kind of a sad fact if you ask me. Photography is on the other hand something entirely different, it’s about capturing and holding on to that moment. Keeping a record of whatever happened, no matter the significance of that moment.

Going back to music for a moment. Like I said, I just returned for an orchestra concert at the Philharmonie. The Berlin Philharmonic played Gustav Mahler’s First Symphony conducted by Daniel Harding. He conducted the very first concert I ever played with a professional orchestra, close to 20 years ago. Conducting no less than a symphony by Mahler. That was a very special experience for a young music student, being thrust into the overwhelming world of Gustav Mahler without knowing how to make heads or tails of playing in an orchestra. Much because of this experience, Mahler’s music has a very special place in my heart. There’s no record of this, it’s just in my memory and again it is all about conveying and understanding human feelings.

Photography has in a way completed my need for holding on to moments, so that music can stay fleeting and magical in its own right.

Music and photography, two quite different ways of communicating human feelings, but at the same time very complementary looking at the big picture.

Bis später,

Ole