Cellist turned photographer Charles Brooks began photographing the insides of musical instruments as something to do during lockdown. He explains to Jason Blake how he uses specialist probe lenses and complex imaging techniques to create the extraordinary pictures, which are now garnering worldwide attention.

The inside of a flute - gold, circular shapes.
The inside of a Burkart Elite flute in 14K rose gold. Photo © Charles Brooks

Viewed without knowing what you are looking at beforehand, Charles Brooks’ photographs can evoke strange worlds. A cavernous wooden space suggests the interior of some enormous medieval sailing ship. A metallic tunnel seems to belong to a massive 19th-century subterranean engineering project. An upholstered interior could be the rec room of a space craft from 2001: A Space Odyssey. A bright dot...