The photographs that can be seen in my submission are part of my latest project called “Instant Stage”. The name of the series presents the subject it handles and the medium through which the series was created.
More precisely, Instant Stage is a series of instant photographs of various jazz musicians, captured on dedicated instant film, using original Polaroid cameras. Personally, I like to think of this project as something different from what people would normally expect from music photography. There are specific aspects of the Instant Stage project, technical and creative, that make me see it this way. For instance, each photograph in the series is entirely unique and one of a kind, as each exists only as a single original copy. In addition, every photograph has been signed personally by the musician depicted. Technically speaking, creating this series had its challenges, for old Polaroid cameras have none to very little manual settings that one can work with. To make matters worse, despite the rather low ISO of the film, I have also refused using the flash when photographing. Creatively speaking, what you see in these photographs is exactly what that particular moment had to offer. No setups, no manipulation. With this series, I wasn’t necessarily trying to create something visually appealing, like in the case of studio photography, but rather to capture the spontaneity of a moment (on stage) into a single and unique frame. A side note, I would like to mention that I have just turned the Instant Stage series into a self-published photo book, after running a successful founding campaign on Kickstarter.
About Ioana Tăut
Ioana Tăut was born in Arad, a small city in Romania, in 1989. Ms. Taut’s passion for art began during her early childhood, first through painting and sketching and then through writing and photography during her adolescence. Her passion for writing and photography led her into studying and becoming a journalist, receiving her Bachelor’s degree in 2011 from the Department of Journalism at the Faculty of Political, Administrative and Communication Sciences at the Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca. During her years working as a journalist, Ms. Tăut mainly approached social and cultural topics, paving the way to what she had later become: a music journalist and photographer. Starting as a concert photographer focusing mainly on rock and alternative music, adding later on, jazz concerts and festivals, she has photographed significant artists and bands including: Suede, Placebo, Nick Cave, Jethro Tull, Rufus Wainwright, The Crimson Projekct, Ravi Coltrane, Jack DeJohnette, Tigran Hamasyan, Stanley Clarke, Tom Harrell, Dave Holland, John Scofield a.o. Ms. Tăut has collaborated with a number of online magazines in Romania, Czech Republic and the USA. Since 2014 she has worked as the official live concert photographer of the Gărâna Jazz Festival in Romania – a festival considered to be among the most important jazz festivals in Europe. More recently, Ms. Tăut developed a passion for instant photography, which has become her main photographic focus in addition to her music photography. Through her exploration of the use of instant film, Ms. Tăut is documenting various subjects in a unique series of fine art work. Ms. Tăut is based in Berlin, where she has collaborated with the jazz record label ActMusic and the prestigious Berliner Philharmonic for the jazz series, Jazz at Berlin Philharmonic.[Official Website]
