Photography is Jazz for the Eye

Legends of Jazz photographed by Susanne Schapowalow

Susanne Schapowalow met the great figures of music on stage or behind the scenes, at work or off duty.Her pictures give us the feeling that we can hear and feel the things she caught on film and sense their defining features.Schapowalow succeeds in capturing human qualities joy, uninhibited fun, concentration, weariness, a certain sadness, and above all an almost indescribable feeling of trust.It’s a phenomenon we sense everywhere in her pictures and it bonds her with the musicians. Each of her pictures tell stories. When other photographers take truly excellent pictures, we’re often inclined to say that they’ve captured the music. In Schapowalow’s pictures, we feel we recognize the musicians, personalities, their quirks, their vulnerability, their humor, their seriousness. It is the everyday normality of the musicians, lives that she preserves, the dichotomy between the glamour and a reality involving lots of hard work.