Getty

How do you capture jazz on camera? 📷

Anthony Barboza's approach is the result of what he calls “eye dreaming," a state of dreaming while awake in which the rhythm of the craft comes so naturally that the creative act becomes an unconscious, immersive flow state. The result: images that vibrate with the energy of jazz itself—presenting musicians in an electric haze of movement.

"In a lot of photographs of jazz musicians... everything is still. I wanted to show how I felt when I was hearing the music," Barboza shared with Getty curator Mazie Harris. "I always think of the jazz photographs I’ve done as very spiritual... Is [that because] I got so much feeling from the music? I don’t know, but it's also that it’s our music."

Learn more about Braboza's life and career in the publication Eye Dreaming: Photographs by Anthony Barboza:
https://gty.art/4dPIXgg

-Roberta Flack, 1971, Anthony Barboza. Getty Museum, Gift of Anthony Barboza and Laura Carrington. © Anthony Barboza
-Lester Bowie & Cecil McBee, Catalina Club, LA, 1986–1989, Anthony Barboza. Getty Museum, Gift of Anthony Barboza and Laura Carrington. © Anthony Barboza
-Betty Carter, NYC, 1977, Anthony Barboza. Getty Museum, Gift of Anthony Barboza and Laura Carrington. © Anthony Barboza