I'm Inspired By The Monumental Interiors of Musical Instruments
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Today I wanna talk about Charles Brooks, an extraordinary Australian creative whose career is a perfect harmony of those sonic and those visuals. For two decades, Charles was a professional cellist holding principle positions in concert halls and around the world.
But in 2016, he's turned his artistic focus to photography, bringing that deep internal music knowledge to revolutionary visual project called [00:01:00] Architecture in Music. And I was scrolling through my Instagram feed recently, as one does, and I stopped dead in my tracks. There it was a picture of what looked like
an architectural marvel, what looked like an underground abyss from, something out of The Walking Dead almost that's been lingering for thousands of years.things that look like opera houses. It was just absolutely surreal.
As I scroll through, I notice pianos and cellos and violins and guitars. Unbelievable. There's this hidden world inside of instruments that we don't really think about as photographers, maybe even as musicians. We don't think about it, but that's what inspired this monologue, episode of Lenses & Lyrics,. A moment when the lens
and the sound combined. The visual and the audible completely merged Charles Brooks Visionary Series Architecture in Music is a [00:02:00] profound meditation on structural beauty in the deep intersection of creative disciplines, drawing on his intimate connection to the musical world. Brooks employs custom engineered macro lenses and advanced focus stacking techniques to venture deep inside instruments like pianos, guitars, violin, and cellos.
The resulting images are far from simple closeups. They're stunning architectural portraits that fundamentally challenge our perception of these very familiar objects. We only see from the outside typically. The delicate, intricate internal wood bracing of a violin or the precisely placed felt hammers of a grand piano, they're instantly transformed from hidden components into monumental cathedral-like spaces sweeping industrial corridors or minimalistic art installations.
This is where the [00:03:00] project's true brilliance lies.
Photography and design. By using the technical medium of photography to render these tiny internal worlds in immense, sharp detail, Charles Brooks gives the physical monumental form to the intangible concept of music. And it serves as a breathtaking visual reminder that creativity is the common language.
Linking the musician's physical performance space with the designer's blueprint, culminating in a powerful visual symphony that proves the greatest artistic endeavors are inherently multidisciplinary. It's a powerful invitation to look closer and to listen differently. So I invite you to check out Charles's Project Architecture in Music.
Check it out on [00:04:00] Instagram, go to his website. All of that is linked in the show notes. Maybe one day Charles will want to be on this show and we will talk deeper about this. But for now, I just want you to be as inspired as I was. As I came across these photos and the one that stood out to me the most, one that really said, wait a minute, that's the inside of like a violin or something, was the one where you see that curve that you commonly see in open body guitars or in violins and cellos and things like that, these string instruments that are just
Beautiful. That is what caught my attention and said, wait a minute. That's an instrument, so check it out in the show notes. Architecture in music by Charles Brooks.