The images in this series titled “The Cello Project” created exclusively for the 2015 Weston Scholarship Contest are a culmination of an idea I have had for some time uniting the cello and figure. Two of the three distinct settings were utilized indoors using direct and indirect daylight as the main light source, while the third and final setting was photographed at night using incandescent lamps, exclusively.The importance of photography in my life has been immense as an artistic representation of creativity. Music also played an important role while growing up so in a sense the visual and auditory tonalities are interconnected in this series, each has nourished the other. Although the cello can only be ‘silent’ on photographic paper it ‘speaks’ emotion, sensuality and imagination as it repeats its curvature and identity alongside the natural, sensual but subtle expressions of the female figure.
It is my intention to share these sentiments with you, the viewer, the final third of the triad.
The exposures and images for this series were made using Ilford films 100 and 400 ISO and Ilford warmtone semi matte paper.
Ruben Cipriano Martin