Personal and experimental projects can be a lot of fun for both those who create them and those who view them. This particular project was created by Italian film photographer Mario Cipriano, and it’s definitely a little bit odd, but pretty cool. He combines film photographs he shot with his Leica M6 with a sound recorder to capture the five seconds leading up to the shot being taken, and the five seconds following it. Each photo then has 10 seconds of audio to accompany it. It’s fascinating to watch played back in video form.
It’s interesting how sound can play on our thoughts and feelings without us even realising it. Even though the sounds add some context to the shot, it can be difficult to really know what’s going on in those first five seconds while the screen is black before the photo pops up.
According to Cipriano, there are three outcomes when viewing each audio & photograph pair. While watching the video, which shows Cipriano’s first ten “AudioPhotographs”, I was mostly C, with the occasional B. Not once was I able to actually predict the image that was going to appear. B. The sound prepares your mind to a determinate image and then an out of context image appears. C. The sound is so ambiguous that your mind is totally free to imagine and can’t wait to discover what the image will be. An intriguing concept that I hope he continues long in the future – which is something he suggests that he plans to do. Having only half the story with the sound before the image pops up definitely opens up the imagination. And then seeing the image, you sometimes wonder how it wasn’t obvious from the audio. But it does give you a different appreciation for the photograph. I’m curious to see who else is inspired by this project, and where they may take it, too. [via Phoblographer]
