Roll Down the Windows

"Is there a piece of music that you would most like to makes photos like?"

These were John Loomis' first words to me this morning. Man, way to get my brain going before the coffee kicked in. Then he went and followed it up with a great blog post, about the "indistinguishable line between music and photography."

For John, the essence is Tom Waits.

I still don't have a concrete answer. For me, photography is as fluid as the music I like, and equally as diverse. Either way both are based on my mood at the time.

I've always loved music, mainly because more than anything else, it makes me feel something. I still have songs that resonate deeply and can instantly take me back to a very specific point in time. Songs that memories are connected to. Simon and Garfunkel's "Cecilia"... Smashing Pumpkins' "Silverfuck"... Nirvana's "All Apologies"... The Pixies entire Doolittle album...

Nick Hornby wrote about songs he loves or loved in 31 songs. In the intro he says that he wanted to write about what these songs brought to him, not what he brought to the songs. One of my favorite essays in the book is on Gregory Isaac's "Puff the Magic Dragon." When Hornby's son Danny is born, he dreams of sharing his love of music with him. He wonders whether his boy will simply be a fan, or learn to play an instrument and perform at Royal Albert Hall.

Danny is severely autistic. But regardless, he feels music. Intensely. So much so, that he created his own word for it -- "goggo." And through songs like "Puff the Magic Dragon" on a children's reggae CD, Hornby finds that bond.

If it's true that music does, as I've attempted to argue elsewhere, serve as a form of self-expression even to those of us who can express ourselves tolerably well in speech or in writing, how much more vital is it going to be for him, when he has so few other outlets? That's why I love the relationship with music he has already, because it's how I know he has something in him that he wants others to articulate. In fact, thinking about it now, it's why I love the relationship anyone has with music: because there's something in us beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out.

When I was a kid, I used to love making compilation tapes for people. And for me, a big part of that was trying to capture a feeling and then sharing that with someone else. I think the same holds true for the pictures I take.

In the spirit of that I give you my Summer 07 Mix. Picture a big blue sky, with puffy white clouds, and the sun instantly warming your skin. It makes me want to Roll Down the Windows and Drive.