365:SEVENTY-ONE

Escape

I can’t get to sleep
I think about the implications
Of diving in too deep
And possibly the complications

Especially at night
I worry over situations
I know I’ll be alright
Perhaps it’s just imagination

Day after day it reappears
Night after night my heartbeat shows the fear
Ghosts appear and fade away…

~Colin Hay – “Overkill”~

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365:NINE

Noted

The day nearly got away from me.  I’m reminded that time management is a trainable skill.  Initially, my photographic intentions for number nine involved some view of Charleston waterfront.  After a long bike and run workout, a trip to the grocery, tossing dinner together, and prepping birthday cake, I was left with cold, dark night…and not a lot of time for the project.

So I grabbed my guitar and headed upstairs to the spare room which currently serves as a makeshift studio and Thomas the Tank Engine train track area.  This shot is nothing fancy.  A black background, shoot-through umbrella high from camera left, white reflector from camera right and a touch of flash from my rear to separate me from the background.  I shot with a 50mm lens, where a 35 probably would have been better to give a bit more space in the frame to the subject.

This will surely not be the last guitar shot in this project.  I’d like to try some more interesting band shoots on location.

Comment and critique are always welcome.  If you had 30 minutes or less to produce a photograph, what would you shoot?

365:Two

Warmth

Nearly everyone with a camera seems to want to take GOOD product or detail shots.  I don’t know whether this qualifies as “good” or not, but it is the best effort I could make today.  While looking around the house for an object with lots of detail and warmth, my eyes naturally settled on my pride and joy Paul Reed Smith Singlecut guitar.  This should be a piece of cake, right?  It should be impossible to take a bad photograph of a Paul Reed Smith guitar.  These are some of the most beautiful instruments currently made.  What could possibly go wrong?

Well, it turns out plenty can go wrong when photographing guitars and other shiny objects.  All of those small metal parts just LOVE to reflect light in odd directions.  And then when you’ve finally controlled all of those specular highlights, you realize your 2-strobe lighting ratio has gone completely haywire.  A seemingly safe shot quickly devolved into a lesson in patience and perseverance as I made small adjustments between seventy-four images in order to get the photograph I was looking for.

Lesson for the day:  Two hours to capture a simple product detail shot is simply too long.  More practice!  Today’s experience could just as easily have involved food and table settings, medical instruments, or jewelry.