I’m thrilled to share an image from my portrait session with Oregon composer Andrea Reinkemeyer.
This talented individual is developing a vast oeuvre and playfully refers to her publishing house “Reinke Dink Ink.”
I photographed Andrea at Zing Studio in Sherwood, Oregon. Together we considered how to demonstrate what a composer “does” for her various audiences. Andrea has peers, who might hire her to write a piece for their ensemble or orchestra – or engage in scholarly debate. There is respect to be considered. She has college students who will undoubtedly google their professor, and she also has the general public who might be curious at the novelty of being able to hear music performed by a living composer.
Behind the scenes personal aside:
When I got my music degree in the early-aughts, I dabbled in composition and theory in a bare-minimum-required kind of way. I remember being impressed with the Sibelius software- the electronic technology was not new, but it also had a long way to come. If I remember correctly, the music lab had it loaded on some outdated-even-then Mac computers… the boxy kind, with the tubes.
Despite my training and proximity to new works, my brain still romanticizes composition as an analog process. The power of the symbol – as a viewer we see someone holding a pen to paper and we feel it must surely be legit.
I felt my job in this scenario was to speak both languages- to bridge the gap between reality and fantasy, literal and symbolic, the untrained viewer and the coworker. In our studio session, we played around with a bit of the analog and a bit of the digital. We didn’t want to try too hard with the props, but having something look realistic AND at a flattering angle in the right light definitely takes some experimentation. We had some awkward pencil holding images but ultimately landed on this beautiful serious and unique image of her with the tools of her trade (among more traditional composer headshots and tight crops for artist bio statements).
I’m really happy with the suite of images we created together, and can’t wait for her to release them into the world.
Find out more about commissioning Oregon Composer Andrea Reinkemeyer at her website as it evolves: https://www.andreareinkemeyer.com
