Photographer Reveals the Architecture Inside Musical Devices

The inside of a musical instrument

Intrigued in the inner workings of musical devices, photographer Charles Brooks designed a photo series that demonstrates the interior buildings of pianos, cellos, flutes, and other devices from an completely new standpoint.

A Talented Musician and Photographer

Brooks is an knowledgeable orchestral cellist and a photographer, based in Auckland, New Zealand. His two creative passions have adopted him facet-by-facet and resulted in portraits of globe-renowned musicians. He even started an affiliation with Panasonic Lumix when the business invited him to be among the the very first to these a new flagship digital camera in 2018.

Brook’s most current challenge marries both of those photography and new music. Titled “Architecture in Songs,” Brook’s photographic series ventures inside of the composition of various musical instruments, like pianos, saxophones, cellos, flutes, and some others.

The inside of a musical instrument
Fazioli Grand Piano
The inside of a musical instrument
Selmer Well balanced Action Sax from the 1940s
The inside of a musical instrument
Steinway Design D

Possessing spent a long time enjoying new music, Brooks was curious about what goes on within his trusted instruments. “Occasionally, when an instrument was currently being repaired, you’d get a scarce glimpse inside of, which was often a thrilling knowledge,” he tells Colossal.

The inside of a musical instrument
Steinway Product D
The inside of a musical instrument
Lockey Hill Cello circa 1780
The inside of a musical instrument
14k Gold Flute
The inside of a musical instrument
1980s Yanagisawa Saxophone

Just about every picture in the sequence generates an illusion, with the purpose of giving the viewers the impact they are viewing intricate buildings and tunnels that go on for miles, not close-ups of musical instruments.

The inside of a musical instrument
Steinway Model D
The inside of a musical instrument
Fazioli Grand Piano
The inside of a musical instrument
Fazioli Grand Piano
The inside of a musical instrument
Fazioli Grand Piano

“I was generally intrigued in the psychology of how our intellect interprets scale in a two-dimensional impression,” Brooks continues. “I’d been fascinated by the tilt-shift outcome, which built significant issues seem small by blurring component of the graphic, and I wished to know if I could make smaller matters glimpse significant by preserving all the things sharp.”

Shot with a Macro Probe Lens

The photographs ended up “painstakingly established utilizing a specific 24mm probe lens from Laowa,” Brooks tells PetaPixel. He even more modified the lens to make it scaled-down and made use of it with a Lumix S1R digicam human body.

The inside of a musical instrument
Selmer Balanced Action Saxophone from 2021
The inside of a musical instrument
Didgeridoo by Trevor Gillespie/Peckham of the Wiradjuri tribe in New South Wales, Australia
The inside of a musical instrument
Fazioli Grand Piano

“Typically close-up shots like these would be largely blurry with incredibly shallow depth of field. I utilised a technique called emphasis stacking to hold them sharp from front to back again.”

Brooks took approximately 100 photographs for just about every ultimate impression, bit by bit modifying the emphasis for each individual 1. Then, he ran them through devoted software program to merge the sharp components of each image.

“The outcome seems to be a cavernous place that invitations you to walk as a result of as if the instrument is its personal concert hall,” Brooks suggests.

Far more of Brook’s work can be uncovered on his website and Instagram.


Impression credits: Images by Charles Brooks.