Sometimes music and the viewing of music videos can help invigorate a model and photographer for a great shoot, especially when there is more music than words, as in the style of Enigma’s The Principals of Lust. Music also helps relax the model and photographer during their first shoot, especially if they’ve never met beforehand and their personalities are mysteries to each other.
Enigma itself is a word with Greek roots that means mysterious and ambiguous and also is used to name a machine that creates ciphers for the encryption and decryption of secret messages before and during World War II. While the machine was used commercially, as early as the 1920’s, many nations utilized the enigma machine for their government and military branches, including Nazi Germany that used the Wehrmacht Enigma Machine.
While the musical group Enigma is no war machine, its music is often a mystery to many, as Michael Cretu their group leader states in Enigma’s Virgin Records (Germany) bio, “No words can explain music, music explains itself.” Cretu is steadfast to his philosophy that the Enigma type of music should not be tied to any one artist or even one language.
Photography should be similar, it should not be tied to anyone style, artist, or genre, not if you’re planning on being successful in your photographic abilities when working with a new model for the first time. Personalities vary and great photographers know how to adapt to various personalities. Herein is where music can save the day, by relaxing a new, nervous model and helping a photographer focus on a successful shoot and not a cryptic mystery.
