These images have one thing in common. Can you guess what it is?

The Age

14 hours ago

When people first encounter the art of Charles Brooks, they're invariably impressed – if a little perplexed. Some of his works recall the grand pillars of ancient Roman architecture, or volcanic caves forged by fiery explosions. Others resemble the types of precious metals one expects to find inside a pirate's treasure chest, or old-fashioned rooms with peculiar Alice in Wonderland -style dimensions.
Many admirers assume these images were created on a computer, perhaps with the aid of artificial intelligence. Some might mistake them for photorealist illustrations. Few realise they are actually photographs – and they all have one thing in common.
Brooks, 47, is a Melbourne-based photographer who specialises in capturing the interiors of musical instruments. It's a highly technical endeavour that involves a laparoscope – a thin, tube-like camera used in keyhole surgery – in addition to multiple light sources, sophisticated editing software, infrared thermometers and sacks of rice. Brooks is the only person in this world who uses this technique, which he developed himself.
'It started during the COVID lockdowns,' he explains when I visit him at his Hawthorn apartment to observe him at work. 'All these musicians started losing jobs, so they decided to put their instruments into the repair shop. I took the opportunity to go in with my probe lenses and play around, but I never thought it would become a whole thing.'
When Brooks posted an early photo on Reddit, revealing the interior of a friend's 245-year-old cello, he expected to sell a handful of prints. But over the past few years, his extraordinary images have been reproduced an estimated 20 million times in newspapers and magazines across the world. What began as a niche pursuit is now his full-time occupation.
In partnership with the Australian World Orchestra, which will perform Mahler's 4th and 5th symphonies in Melbourne and Sydney in September, Brooks is photographing two instruments on this crisp winter's morning: a cello, circa mid-1700s, and a viola made in the 1910s.
AWO cellist Molly Kadarauch looks suitably nervous as she hands over her instrument, which was crafted by Pietro Antonio Testore, a member of Milan's highly regarded Testore family.
'I've had it since 1989,' she says. 'There are a couple of cracks, which devalued it, so it's been under extensive repair.'
Kadarauch breathes a sigh of relief when she learns that Brooks is a former professional musician himself, having held principal cello positions in China, Chile and Brazil.
He passes her cello to Bendigo-born violin maker Rainer Beilharz, who sets about cleaning its interior by pouring dry rice through the F-holes on either side of its bridge – so named because they resemble a cursive F – before gently shaking it and tipping the grains back out.
'Stradivarius himself would have done this,' Beilharz explains. 'It's a time-honoured technique, which is why no one messes with it.'
Brooks places the cello on a felt-covered table, which is surrounded by three flash bulbs. He hands Kadarauch the thermometer gun, inserts his laparoscope – which he has modified to capture high-resolution images – and begins shooting.
'These are intensely powerful lights, so they put out a lot of heat,' he says as he instructs Kadarauch to alert him if the temperature nears 30 degrees. 'I have to wait eight to 10 seconds between each photograph so I don't boil the varnish.'
It's a painstaking process, requiring up to 300 individual photographs. Afterwards, he will stitch them together on his computer, allowing every detail to remain in sharp focus.
'I use all kinds of software to blend together the bits that are in focus, which is why parts of the image are angled,' he says. 'It'll probably take me three hours just to do the photos, then another week to put them together.'
As Australian World Orchestra violist Lisa Grosman awaits her turn, Brooks mentions that he recently photographed a 1717 Stradivarius, which is on loan to her AWO colleague, Daniel Dodds.
'It's a $20 million violin, so you have to take every possible precaution,' he says, explaining how Beilharz carefully dismantled the end pin, bridge, strings and tailpiece in preparation for the shoot. 'These instruments are held together by tension instead of glue, because glue would dampen the vibrations. When I remove that tension, there's a chance the sound post – the dowel in the centre that transfers vibrations, which is often called the 'soul' of a violin – could just tip over. That's why I need a luthier [a maker of string instruments] to get everything precisely back in place, because even if you move something by a millimetre, it really changes the sound.
'Thankfully, I've never actually had one fall over.'
Brooks, who hails from New Zealand, began photographing the night sky about 10 years ago.
'Astrophotographers often want to capture the whole Milky Way, but it's hard to get in a single shot because it arches from one horizon to the other,' he says. 'You have to move the lens this way and that, over and over. Now, I use those techniques when I'm photographing instruments. In both cases, you're trying to uncover hidden spaces and show details that you wouldn't normally see.'
Over the years, Brooks has documented the interiors of grand pianos, flutes, guitars, pipe organs, saxophones, clarinets, French horns and even a didgeridoo.
'I was expecting to see a wooden instrument that had been chiselled out by hand,' he says. 'But of course, it's an incredible organic structure because it's deliberately hollowed out by termites, which is why it looks like a cave.'
Each time he peers inside an instrument, he unlocks its secrets.
'You'll find repairs and tool marks and even the writing of Stradivarius himself,' he says. 'You might discover thin wooden veneers that are a preventative measure against cracking, or you'll see scratches from cleaning or the signatures of people who've repaired a cello or a viola.
'When you look inside an instrument, you're looking at its history.'
The Australian World Orchestra performs Mahler 4 & 5 on September 3 in Melbourne and September 4 in Sydney. Tickets: australianworldorchestra.com.au
WHY THE AUSTRALIAN WORLD ORCHESTRA IS 'THE SUPER BOWL OF CLASSICAL MUSIC'
In 2010, Alexander Briger founded the Australian World Orchestra with a simple aim: to allow homegrown musicians who currently play in the world's best orchestras – from the Berlin Philharmonic to the London Symphony – to perform together for one week each year.
'It's a bit like seeing the Rolling Stones live, or the best two tennis players in the Wimbledon final,' says Briger, who serves as the AWO's chief conductor and artistic director. 'Most orchestras are like well-oiled machines because the musicians play together every day, but we run on excitement and tension and electricity. We're not the Berlin Philharmonic; we have a completely different energy.'
The AWO's musicians agree: previous members have described it as 'having a school camp vibe in the best possible way', 'like the Australian Youth Orchestra, but with wrinkles' and 'the Super Bowl of classical music'.
On September 3, the AWO will perform Gustav Mahler's 4th and 5th symphonies at Hamer Hall. This will be the first time these works have been performed in a single evening in the Southern Hemisphere – and the AWO will do it all again the following night at the Sydney Opera House.
All up, that's four hours of Mahler in just 48 hours. This is no mean feat, given these symphonies have been described as 'capturing almost the full range of human emotions between them'.