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Michael Weintrob wants to keep you guessing.
With InstrumentHead, a portrait series being exhibited as part of this year’s Secret Stages, even the subjects of the Brooklyn-based photographer’s works are a mystery.
“I’ve been shooting bands for 20 years, and I was always trying to do something different,” Weintrob says. “In 2008, I walked into a bookstore and found this book called The Disciples by James Mollison, a photographer who took pictures of music fans. The whole idea was to guess what bands they were fans of. So I thought, ‘How can I create a guessing game with the musicians themselves?’”
Inspired by a 1998 photo session with the Derek Trucks Band, in which bassist Todd Smallie volunteered to put his bass down his shirt, Weintrob began pursuing the InstrumentHead idea.
“I started reaching out to the musicians I knew, saying, ‘How are we going to tell your story? What is it about you that makes you special? How are people going to know it’s you?’”
The musicians would bring in “elements of themselves” to the photoshoots to provide “different little hints” for viewers, Weintrob says.
More than 500 musicians have participated in the project; the resulting series of photographs features musicians obscuring their faces with their instruments: The Grateful Dead’s Mickey Hart, obscured by the instruments from the band’s famous “Drums” and “Space” segments; Scott Avett of the Avett Brothers, banjo tucked into his denim shirt; funk legend Bootsy Collins, his distinctive red top hat perched atop a point of his signature “Space Bass.”
“And it’s not always famous people,” Weintrob adds. “It’s people from other countries who play indigenous instruments. A lot of times, it’s the sidemen: not Paul Simon, but Paul Simon’s drummer — or not Billy Joel, but Billy Joel’s saxophone player. Especially in the days of Standing in the Shadows of Motown and the Muscle Shoals documentary, it’s all about these guys who were behind the scenes. So I think I’m in that realm of trying to tell the stories of these people, to educate people as to who some of these people are behind the music and to show those people in a different light.”
“It’s really just trying to tell the stories of these musicians,” he says.
InstrumentHead will be on display throughout Secret Stages at the offices of Second Row Law (next to Urban Standard). Prints will be available to order, with 20 percent of the proceeds benefitting Scrollworks Youth Music School. For more information, visit weintrobphotography.com.