Like a forgotten smell, some songs transport us to an earlier time in our lives. Maybe the summer after high school, maybe the dance floor at our wedding.
This kind of auditory recall is what German photographer Kai Schäfer is trying to tap into with his World Records project. But instead of using music, he's using pictures of music. He's photographed old records on old turntables and hopes the photos have the same power as the music they show to call up important memories.
"What I tried to do was create a time machine," he says.
The first album he photographed when he started the project five years ago was Led Zeppelin's IV, which he says was his favorite album from when he was a teenager and just getting into music, and girls. Since then he's photographed over a hundred albums on 25 or so different turntables and is constantly expanding the project.
To make the photos he built a special flash that lights the vinyl exactly how he wants it. He shoots everything with a Hasselblad camera with a Phase One digital back and then makes enormous prints that are sometimes up to six feet big (which makes for a completely different experience than viewing them here on the web).
He's given himself fairly strict rules to work by when is comes to his record and turntable choices. Nowadays he only uses first or second edition records that were printed in the country where the band is from. If it's a Rolling Stones album it has to be from the United Kingdom. If it's Miles Davis, it has to be from the United States. He then tries to photograph the records on a turntable that is from a similar era as the first edition of the record because he wants to recreate the original look.
"I think [having the first or second printing] of the vinyl is important because collectors will know," he says.
Finding all these items in Germany has been less challenging that one might think. It turns out that there are several audiophiles in the Düsseldorf area where he lives that have extensive vinyl and record player collections. He put out a call on a local vinyl collectors website and quickly met people who were willing to sell or lend him what he was looking for.
For the harder, more obscure items, he turns to the web. He can almost always find the records or turntables he wants on Ebay, but sometimes they come at a price. The most he's ever paid for a record was 500 Euros, or about $650, on a copy of Elvis' Mystery Train from Sun Records.
"I have my ways," he says.
All photos: Kai Schäfer
The Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles will be exhibiting a selection of the World Records prints from June 8 to July 13. For more information please visit the gallery's website
