Field notes · Black and White

The Band, 1911

A print found in a market box, a brass band nobody can name and a note on why I keep photographing groups the way they were photographed a century ago.

Isabelle Delamare 11:30:00 26/05/08

Archive black and white photograph of a brass band — Photograph courtesy of Museums Victoria

Twenty musicians, their instruments and one dog, arranged by a photographer who knew exactly where every face should go. The print cost less than a coffee and has been on my desk since.

Nobody at the market knew who they were. The back of the print says 1911 in pencil and nothing else. Twenty people who stood still for a stranger, and the stranger did his job so well that the picture outlived everyone in it.

What the old pictures know

Everyone is still, everyone is visible and the light comes from one side. I have tried to make a group portrait since without those three rules and it does not work. The band knew.

Black and white portrait of a woman lying with her eyes closed — A sitting of mine on the same principles: one light, one side, nobody moving. Photograph by Marylou Fortier.

When I photograph a family now I put the print on the table first. Then we arrange ourselves like a band, and it works every time, because it worked in 1911.

What the old pictures know

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