I’ve often heard people describe music as a way to “decorate time with sound.” It’s a pretty cool idea, and admittedly, kind of poetic too but to be honest, it’s never really how I relate to music when I compose.

If you know me, you know I love making fun of composers who go on and on about music’s “relationship to/with time.” Yeah, t’s valid, but it becomes such a cliché after a while. Still, ironically enough, I’ve been thinking a lot about time lately. Just… not through music.

This summer, I decided to take a break from my usual musical grind. No applications, no festivals, no deadlines. The only musical commitment I’ve kept is the upcoming premiere of my piece Ophélia in Lucerne this August. Outside of that, I gave myself permission to explore creativity in other forms—and it’s been kind of magical.

I signed up for two classes: analog photography and silkscreen printing. Just for fun. No pressure, no career moves just curiosity.

I’ve been walking around the city with my Nikon FE2 and my Leica R4 capturing little moments and something unexpected happened: I started to slow down.

You know the typical constantly churning student composer brain, that never allows itself to be safe or take a break… always on hyperdrive. But then, I started living behind the lens, and started observing and most of all WAITING.

Street photography is my favorite because I get to witness and capture fleeting, unrepeatable moments…I capture the light of those moments, the action, the movement and I just seal it onto a frame, how cool is that! These scenes won’t ever happen the same way again. They’re ephemeral (just like music in a way) but they’re un-manipulated. They’re what they are. In music, by contrast, everything I write is shaped precisely, timed precisely, orchestrated in a specific way and when it’s gone it’s gone you know, it lives somewhere in the subconscious of the audience. The difference feels profound.

Then there’s the darkroom. Developing film and printing by hand is humbling. I mess up. A lot. But the process is tactile and grounding. I can’t rewind a moment, I have to accept it as it was, imperfections and all.

What’s been surprising is how photography is now informing how I think about music. The framing, the patience, the attention to light and shadow, all of it is starting to seep into how I imagine sound. I’m becoming less nit-picky, more open to spontaneity, more curious about contrast and timing, about the chemistry of sound.

Here are a few of my recent shots.

Stay tuned for more updates from the darkroom and maybe a few sound experiments that come out of this visual adventure.