Blaise practicing
l'enfer
There are children with violins everywhere from Shanghai to Sheffield. They practice every morning before school, when they get home, once a day, once a week , or once in a month of Sundays. Some throw their instrument to the ground, bitter with frustrated despair, others show it more love than they’d willingly give a sibling. They play in school, or in youth orchestras, they are belonging to a team where you don’t have to score. They play as if they have invisible stacks of books balanced on their heads. Then one day they grow up, they give it all up, all the practices and all the playing. Or maybe, with luck, perhaps, they grow up and they stay violinists.
There are people with cameras everywhere from Sydney to Saratoga. We shoot film and sometimes even get it developed, we shoot digital and rarely get a print. We try to hold a moment of time, we try to trap the impermanent and the ephemeral. Sometimes we’re disheartened, but we keep on practicing.
There is sunlight everywhere, absolutely everywhere. Sometimes streaming clear and harsh, other times desperate and feeble. Then there’s the wonderful moment when that sunlight sneaks through the window and kisses a young violinist’s bow, tangles itself through her curls. It eases the tension of her jaw, it teases the music from the catch-lights in her eyes. It doesn’t matter to us if she playing Three Blind Mice or a Mozart minuet. It is always good to see music so beautifully practiced.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Rachel Irving and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
