BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
You’ve probably seen it before. A near-black concert hall, the silhouette of a certain someone tiptoeing up to the action. Camera in hand, this person will crouch and contort, seeking their ultimate goal: the perfect picture.
A music photographer holds a lot of responsibility – without posing a distraction to the audience, they must capture the ideal moment on a piece of battery-reliant technology, in order to archive the live event before it slips away into our memories.
In Peter Hislop’s case, he’s been snapping up classical music performances for years – and offers his pictures for free to the students, international performers, and ensembles. He also donates his work to the National Film and Sound Archive.
After years of his service to Australia’s classical music industry, Peter is celebrating the launch of his first photography exhibition. If you take a visit to the High Court of Australia before January 23, you’ll be able to take a journey through People, Performances and Places – revealing the country’s live music landscape as Peter has seen it.
Ever wondered what it takes to be a music photographer? Read on as Peter tells us his story.
Who do you see as the ideal audience for your photographs?
The main audience for me are concert-goers – normally photographs are taken at concerts for reviews that are published in the local press, and the performers move on without seeing them. But I ‘live’ the development of the concert through the rehearsals, and give the photos to the performers who may or may not publish them. So the performers know and like my work, but audience members, who see (and sometimes are distracted by) me working, ask me where they end up.
What does your exhibition teach us about classical music photography?
This exhibition tells people what happens to the photos both in the short term, and the research resource that they become in the long term. It also explains why photographers are shooting at concerts rather than dress rehearsals, and how difficult it can be to be silent, invisible, and capture photos of wonderful performances under pretty challenging constraints. In short, if you want photos, you have to have a photographer, and one who knows what they’re doing!
You shoot about 200 events per year, and gift your photos at no cost to those who need them. Why have you adopted this ethic as a photographer?
Unlike commercial popular music concerts, most classical performances are run on a shoestring – most performers get proportionally very little (if anything) for the time they put in – especially recitals by students or community groups. So hiring a photographer is not an option for most concerts, and if it were, they’d only be hired for the concert itself, and the back-story of the preparations and rehearsals would be lost. And most photographers wouldn’t catalogue their work so thoroughly and donate it to an archive such as the NFSA for posterity.
You cover subjects from students through to international performers. How do you respect and display these different career stages through your photographs?
While I photograph the broadest range of concerts that I can – impromptu house concerts, high school and university students, community orchestras and choirs through to Australian and international professionals, I try to treat them all with same respect and professionalism. All are putting their love of music and their ability out on stage for the public to judge. Some are lucky enough to have made music their career and enjoy sharing photos with their friends around the world. Others are at the beginning of that journey are facing examiners as well as the camera. I feel that supporting students by documenting and archiving their performances is important for them and their families, both now and for posterity.
I’m pleased when I’ve shot a good documentary record of a concert. I’m ecstatic when I’ve photographed the emotion of the performers.
Take us back through the years. How did you first get into classical music photography?
Like many people’s interests, it was a lucky accident. I grew up in an era when orchestral sounds and even classical arrangements weren’t unusual in popular music – Sergeant Pepper, Moody Blues, Switched on Bach, Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Pictures at an Exhibition. However, Lou Reizner’s 1972 recording of The Who’s rock opera Tommy with the London Symphony Orchestra and the English Chamber Choir really got me interested in the world of orchestral music, and I started exploring and learning more – a process that is still ongoing.
The start of Australia’s first community radio station 2MBS-FM interested me, and I went along to its premises near my work in Crows Nest to see what it was about. I helped out with odd jobs from answering the phone to putting programs together. Eventually, I was asked if I’d edit the monthly program guide. In addition to listing all the music broadcast in the month, it contained opera synopses, relevant articles and interviews. I started taking photographs when concerts were recorded for broadcast, and of performers interviewed for an accompanying article. Several ABC staff moonlighted at 2MBS-FM in their spare time, including some from the Federal Music Department, and I was invited to photograph some concerts, rehearsals and recording sessions with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, various soloists and composers. I stayed in touch with people I met and photographed during this time, and decades later they encouraged me back to the concert hall.
What was the most exciting gig you’ve ever captured?
That’s a very hard question to answer. Concerts are just as musically exciting for me as for any audience member. But I have the added opportunity for it to be exciting professionally, like others who work so hard at concerts: musicians or lighting and sound engineers. For photographers, that can be telling the longer story of a concert through its rehearsals and performance, anticipating and capturing a special moment, or bringing home good photos from an event under difficult circumstances – such as atmospherically candle-lit or sight lines weaving between microphones and music stands.
I’m pleased when I’ve shot a good documentary record of a concert. I’m ecstatic when I’ve photographed the emotion of the performers.
What advice would you give to others looking to start their photography journey?
Earn the respect and trust of the people you work with, what ever field of photography is your passion. It gives me a wonderful feeling – meeting someone new and wary of being photographed in the fragile beginnings of a performance rehearsal, being gradually accepted, then comfortably ignored. Same with audience members – remember that you can’t just run around the hall in the middle of a piece to get the best position. Present as little distraction as possible – most will tolerate and even help if you show you’re trying to be invisible and silent. In performances I just wear socks on my feet to reduce the sound of footsteps – people notice that! But a few will resent any distraction at all – coughs, children or photographers – no matter how hard you try, they’ll never be happy. But still try.
Anticipate the shots needed to cover the event, and what breaks in the music to move to those positions – the back of the auditorium to capture the whole stage, closer for all members of a small ensemble, or perhaps the side of the stage for a close-up of the conductor and soloist working together. Sometimes that can mean shooting a portrait from 30 metres. In the dark. Standing on a chair.
All images in this article are taken from Peter’s catalogue. Visit the website to find out more about Peter’s photography exhibition.
