Traces Of The Real

song exposure [sawng ek-spoh-zher]: a photograph created by opening the shutter at the start of a song and closing it at the end

A friend of mine recently suggested that I use the term song exposure to refer to these photographs. At first I wasn’t sure about this, but the more I thought about it, the more I began to like it. It encapsulates pretty neatly what the basic concept is – in that these are in a sense photographs of songs, given that the shutter is opened at the start of the song and closed at the end. It also makes reference to the idea of the long exposure, which all these photographs also are.

The song photographed above is by Miracle Bell and I captured them playing it in Whelans at the beginning of January. I don’t know what it was called but more than likely it was something like Reach For The Stars, Follow That Dream or I’m Yours Tonight.  Actually, in spite of their unashamed mainstream pop aspirations, I found myself really enjoying their set. They are hugely accomplished musicians who put on a good show, and sometimes that’s enough to keep me happy. And their songs are ridiculously catchy – I was humming the chorus to every song after they finished it. In addition to this, one of them helped me manoeuver my car out of a really tight spot after the gig, so they are OK in my book.

Apologies about the dreadful nature of the scan. I have been stuck with using my crappy Epson home scanner recently instead of getting proper scans done. If you want to hear what Miracle Bell sound like you can click the song in the player below. If you like what you hear you can go and see them launching a single in the Academy 2 on March 25th. Details here.