SF Symphony Backstage Portraits — Part 2
Returning to the San Francisco Symphony
This is the second session in Marc Olivier Le Blanc's ongoing backstage portrait series with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The first visit established the visual language and approach; the second deepened it — more musicians, more corners of the backstage environment, more time with the particular quality of pre-performance light and atmosphere at Davies Symphony Hall.
Access to the backstage at a major symphony orchestra is not a given. It requires trust on the part of the institution and a clear sense of how the photographer will work — specifically, that they will be present without being intrusive, and will make portraits that serve the subjects as much as they serve the project. Marc Olivier Le Blanc has built that kind of working relationship with the San Francisco Symphony, and this second session reflects that growing access.
Portraits Before the Performance
The moments immediately before a performance are charged with a very particular quality of attention. Musicians are focused but not yet performing — they are inside the preparation, inside the routine, inside the specific practice of getting ready to do something extraordinary in public.
As a professional photographer and portrait photographer, Marc Olivier Le Blanc is drawn to this threshold space. The portraits made here are not candids in the traditional sense — the subjects know the camera is present. But they are not posed in the conventional sense either. They are portraits of people doing something real, made by a photographer with the patience to wait for the frame.
Ongoing Editorial Documentary Work in San Francisco
The SF Symphony series is part of a broader practice of long-form documentary portrait work that Marc Olivier Le Blanc maintains alongside his commercial and editorial assignments. Other ongoing projects include portrait series with the San Francisco Opera, the San Francisco Arts Commission, and individual subjects across the Bay Area.
Follow the full SF Symphony backstage portrait series on the blog, or reach out if you're an arts organization looking for a photographer for long-form documentary work.
Check out SF Symphony Backstage Portraits — Part 3 and Part 1.
As an editorial photographer based in San Francisco, the city's cultural institutions represent some of the most photogenic and historically significant subjects available. This series is a record of one of them. Marc Olivier Le Blanc is a San Francisco commercial photographer working with cultural institutions, arts organizations, and editorial publications across the Bay Area.
