Architecture in Music

Stunning photos reveal the hidden details inside musical instruments. Photographer Charles Brooks reveals the beauty and complexity of these invisible spaces using specialized lenses and complex imaging techniques. Each photo is a mix of hundreds of individual images. The unparalleled sharpness and attention to detail makes these rooms appear as vast rooms where the makers' tool marks, repairs made over the centuries and hidden architecture are revealed.

Charles Brooks selects rare instruments with fascinating histories: a cello that was once run over by a train, a didgeridoo that was hollowed out by termites, an exquisite Fazioli grand piano that was handcrafted from 11000 individual parts. Each instrument is photographed hundreds of times with increasingly larger focal lengths. These recordings are then painstakingly put together into a single image. The clarity and carefully chosen perspectives make the viewer believe that the space is much larger than it actually is. A 240-year-old cello looks like the interior of an ancient ship, a hundred-year-old saxophone becomes a gaping tunnel of green and gold, the keys of a piano become a monolithic temple.