So, I’ve been reading this book, “This is Your Brain on Music,” by Daniel J. Levitin. I actually just picked it up at the airport on my way back to the West Indies yesterday and so far I have had a hard time putting it down.

I’m pretty sure I heard this guy in an interview a couple years ago on NPR. It was one of those interviews that stuck in my head. The things he talked about were so true and seemed to just resonate with me.

Dr. Levitin started his career in music. He became a well respected sound engineer, working with musicians like Stevie Wonder, Carlos Santana, and Blue Oyster Cult. But later, Levitin decided to pursue a PhD in Neuroscience.

His book is all about the way the brain reacts to music. He spells out the components of sound from a scientific standpoint down to an emotional one, and he explains in very simply, but (and I quote) “not oversimplified” terms just why it is that music has been a part of every recorded culture and civilization for as long as we know.

I really like this type of stuff, where art meets science. I think it’s really what I’m all about. One of my favorite parts in the beginning of the book is when he compares the creativity of a scientist to an artist. We are very similar creatures, if not synonymous.

When I think about photography, I think about the art and science of it. I think about the technical aspects of the equipment, the light, and the way my lens might record a scene differently than another lens in my bag. But, I also think about the form and the emotional impact I might be able to control or convey in some way. In Levitin’s book, he quotes Miles Davis (one of my all time favorites) as saying that the most important part of his solos were the empty spaces between notes, or the “air” between one note and the next, giving the listener time to anticipate it.

I think these types of things cary over directly to photography. Here is an example from my archive. I took this photo while in Israel of a young Palestinian boy preparing to throw a rock at an Israeli tank. During the course of the day I shot many photos of rock throwing. But they were all the same. I really needed something a little different, and a little more suggestive. This image, shot through a smoke screen of tear gas, told the story for me. There is some quality about this photograph that is really hard to put into words, but when I think about it, I can see how there is some of Davis’s “air” in there. nothing is really happening, but the viewer knows what’s about to happen, and this creates an emotional response that generates some type of sympathy for the boy and perhaps for whomever he is about to chuck that rock at.

In photojournalism, it can be really difficult to find these types of small moments. There is so much action going on in this situation that it is hard to shy away from what everyone else is focused on. But, in order to really tell the story in a way that will capture the attention of your audience, you really have to look.
After a shoot like this, sometimes years after, I really like to go back through my shoot and find images that at the time didn’t seem too important. These are the images I took on the sidelines. Perhaps they were shot in a lull in the action, or maybe I just saw something interesting while I was working something else. It could be a grab-shot, or even an accident, but I usually end up with a few good frames I never even really noticed during the initial edit. So far Aperture has made it a real joy to be able to go back and find these old shots. Perhaps I should make a Smart Album called “Sidelines” and add to it as I search through my stuff. Who knows, it could wind up being something interesting.

The point of Levitin’s book, and this post, is that aside from all of the science and math and technical details of photography, there will always be that unknown entity. It’s that quality a photograph can have that keeps you from turning the page. I don’t know if science will ever really figure out what that thing is. I sort of hope it doesn’t.

P.S. Did you know that Stevie Wonder played the drums on Superstition?