Evelyn Glennie, Solo Percussionist
Solo Percussionist Dame Evelyn Glennie, Evelyn travels the globe, playing and recording with the world’s finest orchestras and ensembles. She is notably recognized as the first musician to maintain a full-time career as a solo percussionist. Evelyn is also deaf and has, with the aid of her first percussion teacher, honed her awareness of sound to such a degree that she describes her body as ‘a resonating chamber.’
I was commissioned to photograph Dame Evelyn Glennie for a feature about her music.
I had photgraphed Evelyn several years back at the Barbican in London and I wanted to shoot something different. I had no idea what to make of the location which was in her studio/warehouse in a business park other than a google maps image. Not too inspiring.
Recently, I have been getting into the American photographer, Richard Avedon's work (my byline self portrait is influenced by his portraits) and in particular the portrait of the singer Marian Anderson shot in1955. So I decided to bring a desk fan with me as I wanted to somehow have Evelyns hair flowing in the portrait. I just hoped I could persuade her.
On arrival and after scouting around the location, I decided that the warehouse/offices gave nothing for me to work with. Although there were many facinating instruments, I found it was too cluttered and there was nowhere where I could shoot a portrait where I could be happy with the results.
In editorial portraiture you are usually governed by the space on the day and forward planning is all but a luxury. but I find this is where I love to be inspired. The not knowing and the discovery is where my creativeness thrives.
I brought a black backdrop and set up a mini studio in the corner of the warehouse. I started off by shooting some straight portraits for the cover and to have the time to connect with the subject. This is especially important when having an idea where you would need to have the subject's trust for your idea to be accepted. So once we had several contenders for the cover. I explained my idea to which she gladly accepted.
Then fan as expected wasn't strong enough to blow her hair that well but she decided to flick her hair to get some movement and it worked. So as soon as I knew we were on to something I got her to flick her hair many times just to get that right quantity of flowing hair. I think the image works well with both her hand in the frame and without although the later proved quite difficult.
The lighting was pretty simple. one behind her to the left and another almost directly infront of her. I also shot around it in slower speed around 60/125 just to get that little bit of movement. The images made for a really good cover and the main image (the first in this series was a double page spread. My favourite portrait of 2020.