International Shoah Rememberance Day
A competition poster working with the motive of a badly damaged clarinet. The contained message spans from bluntly expressing brutal behaviour lacking reason and logic to a more subtle connection with klezmer music and its tradition. As a leading instrument in klezmer, clarinet is typically played to express moods and colours in substitution for human voice.
Clarinet players collecting traditional musical themes are embodied symbols of reviving Jewish culture after the World War II. Klezmer didn't traditionally work with written musical notes and therefore this part of Jewish culture was almost completely destroyed during Shoah as the whole nation with all its atributes almost was.
Photographic composition for the poster.
Photographed using Leaf Aptus II 7 digital back mounted on a Cambo view camera with Schneider Kreuznach lens attached, and multiple studio light sources.
Photographed using Leaf Aptus II 7 digital back mounted on a Cambo view camera with Schneider Kreuznach lens attached, and multiple studio light sources.
A few details of the photograph, shown in half of the orginial size.
In this one you can read the manufacturer’s inscription: „J. Zazvonil — Kladno“.
The photographed instrument was a rusty old specimen.
There were a few cracks in the wood, but that is said to open the instrument’s sound. Sadly, as I can’t play clarinet, I didn’t try out what this one sounded like. On the other side, if you can play clarinet, come and blow a tune – it wasn’t harmed the slightest bit during the photoshoot!
The non-destructive nature of the process can be told from this backstage picture – here I am, after two days of shooting, arranging some of the last tiny brass bits onto a foam tube. The clarinet had to be stripped down completely, but it needed a thorough cleaning anyway.
Backstage picture credit: Adam Frk.
Final poster design with typography.
February–March 2011
