An Evening with Brass

© Christine Mastroianni, all rights reserved

A good friend of mine not only invited me to check out his brass band's rehearsal, he even said yes when I asked if I could take pictures of the guys as they were playing. Of course the guys weren't so sure about playing for paparazzi at first, but I think they eventually got used to me creeping around on the carpet in pursuit of some good vantage points.

Despite a music stand barricade, I managed to capture natural images of some nice guys spending a few hours doing something they really loved and were fortunate enough to have worked it into their bustling lives. It's good to have a hobby, especially something as intricate as playing a brass instrument, even one that doesn't occupy as much of your time as you wish it could. I  like to think that it's always there, waiting patiently for you, letting you indulge without holding a grudge for the times you didn't play it.

I later switched the bulk of the evening's results to black and white and plan to share them with the band members, just because they might like to have them. I always review a new batch of photos several times because frequently, those that didn't excite me upon first glance will tend to surprise me later on. And I always get a charge out of inspecting reflections.

I discovered this gem in one of the images, hiding in the bell of my friend's French horn. This one got to keep its colour: I adore the dramatic splashing of the blazing red carpet and tungsten lit walls. These bold hues combined with the distortion and the subject positioning reminds me of a post-impressionistic painting... shades of de Toulouse-Lautrec perhaps? And it was all captured just as you see it here, photoshopped only to crop and rotate. A miniature portrait unassumingly nestled within an otherwise well-behaved image.. just waiting to be released!

Here's what it looked like before I pulled it out: