New Project: The Silence Between

Out with the old, in with the new! I really loved my Thousand Words project from last year, and connecting words with images. I’m continuing to do that again this year with my Bee in my Bonnet group as well. But in the spirit of trying to reconnect with things that have been important in my life, this year I am focusing on music. My plan is to plan a shoot based on a song twice a month. It’s not a perfect way to really honor how much music has meant to me, and choosing 24 songs will be difficult and not satisfactory, but as I learned last year when I had to pare down my favorite shots to only 100 I would write about, it’s not about the choices I make, it’s about the process and what comes from that. So I’ll be happy with whatever comes out. Honestly, it seems so far it’s come down to whatever song is stuck in my head at the time! This should really be called an earworm project.

But to kick off the project, I thought I’d make a quick video, which started out trying to explain that using all art forms together to try to express ourselves is just like using more than one of our senses as we experience the world. But instead, it turned into more of an ode to how music relies on rests and the space between the notes to make an impact, just in the same way that we all need rest between our experiences to be able to make sense of them. I rely heavily on the quote by Beethoven, “Music is not in the notes, but in the silence between.” And because this was the kickoff, and because a photo is a silent space between my experiences and a quiet representation of the music in my heart and in my head, I’ve decided to name my new music project, The Silence Between.

I’ve already done two shoots! I’ll blog those in the coming weeks. But for now, I thought I’d just post my video and introduce the whole project.