A friend of mine, who is a chef, always arrives at neighborhood pitch-in gatherings with a beautiful dish to share. She presents humble guacamole or simple chocolate chip cookies with such beauty and attention to detail that they look like they came straight from a Michelin-star kitchen. But why? Who cares what food looks like as long as it tastes good? “You eat with your eyes first,” my friend says. 

Artists who are all show and no substance don’t get very far.

She’s right, of course. How many times have you been at a restaurant watching carefully as all the plates of food are brought to your table, hoping your meal tastes as good as it looks—or at least tastes as good as everyone else’s food looks?

The idea that sight is the sense of first impressions is important for musicians to consider. Everything—from our clothes to our physical approach to the harp to our gestures while we play—can influence how the audience experiences our music. People listen with their eyes first. Should we allow what we see to affect how we experience music? Of course, you could argue that the only thing that should matter in a performance is what you hear. But that’s just not how most people experience music, or most things in the world, for that matter.

When this issue of Harp Column arrived in your mailbox or inbox, your first impression of the magazine was likely made not by reading the contents page, but by looking at the cover photo. We all know you can’t judge a book (or a magazine) by its cover, but we also all know we do it anyway. Like it or not, photos are an important piece of an artist’s portfolio. Sure, savvy Harp Column subscribers will read this issue cover to cover and take in all the content, regardless of what the cover looks like. But it sure doesn’t hurt if we have a dynamo photo on the cover to reel in readers.

Before you conclude that our superficial culture only pays attention to artists for their flashy photos or videos or soundbites or think that some professional photos or videos are your ticket to career success, think again. A fabulous photo is an entry point to an artist’s work, but no one returns to the restaurant where the beautiful steak tastes like cardboard or the concert where the musicians can’t play their way out of a paper bag. Artists who are all show and no substance don’t get very far. 

On the flip side, if you’ve got the chops, but no good visuals, it can be more difficult to attract the attention of your potential audience. And if you want to catch their ear, it helps if you can first catch their eye.

Hopefully, I’ve convinced you of the value of having good publicity photos. If you’re on board with the why, let’s move on to the how. In the latest installment of our Build Your Brand series, author Heather Cornelius walks you through the do’s and don’ts of publicity photos in Picture Perfect. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Cornelius saves you considerable reading with all the great photo examples in the article. We also share some of the favorite publicity photos that have come across our desks at Harp Column from harpists all over the world (See Frame it!). 

For an example of a publicity photo that does everything right, look no further than the eye-catching photo of Angelica Hairston on the cover of this issue. The photo checks off all the do’s laid out in the article and avoids every don’t. But what puts this photo over the top is, as you’ll discover in our interview with her on pg. 14, that Hairston has the “go” to match the “show.”  She’s got the filling under the crown. She’s got cake beneath the icing. Whatever idiom you want to use, Hairston’s work is every bit as impressive as her photos. That’s the kind of publicity shot we should strive for—a photo that provides the perfect entrée into our music. •