Coming out of the Royal Pavilion at Brighton, we heard music and found this young man and his friend playing in the gardens. They paused to talk to some friends of theirs who came by and in turn, I took advantage of the interlude afterwards to talk to the musicians.
He told me his name was Linos (leenos) and the instrument was an African piano called an mbira (umbeera), carefully spelling and pronouncing names for me. For me, it had something of the sound of a xylophone although it looked nothing like it and not like a piano either.
Linos is from Zimbabwe but living in England since 1998. From his card which he gave me, I see that he specialises in traditional Zimbabwean music and dance performance, workshops and tuition.
He was very happy to have his photo taken. I had the short zoom lens on my camera so decided to improvise by zooming to 50mm as it seemed inappropriate to change the lens there and then, plus one of my aims in this project is never to embarrass anyone, including myself.....
What a delightful smile... delightful, that you could take his portrait. I am short on time, these days, but I really like your portrait project. Brave and creative. :)
