For
the metal aspect of the assignment I chose to photograph my guitar’s headstock.
The tuning pegs and strings are metal and the wood has a black lacquer finish.
I positioned the softbox directly overhead and back of the guitar. Only the
very edge of the softbox was putting light on the guitar. I did this because
the body of the guitar was reflecting light into the camera. I placed a piece
of paper on each side of the neck of the guitar to bounce light up towards the
underside of the headstock. The background light was added midway into the
shoot and I placed a blue gel on it (blue because of a Kenny Wayne Shepard
song).
The
main issue I had was the tuning pegs reflecting the ones above them. The two
ways this could have been fixed was to either lay the guitar down and shoot up
the neck or turn the tuning pegs flat so the short edge was all that would
show. The problem with laying the guitar down is that the headstock wouldn’t be
visible. The problem with turning the tuning pegs is that it would look awkward
because they would appear very small and unnatural.
The
idea for the metal in the background came while I was shooting. I caught just a
little edge of one of the light stands and it showed the blue from the light. I
really liked the way it looked. I had to switch some of the light stands to the
black ones so I could have all the silver ones for the background.
The
only thing I would do differently is I would try to clean the guitar better. I
am very leery of putting anything liquid on my guitar and I didn’t have any
professional cleaning substances. I did my best to scrub it with some cotton
swabs.
I
think the shoot went well. Katie was a great help and made everything go
smoothly. We were able to setup, shoot, and tear down in a little over an hour.
And that included adding two elements that weren’t originally part of our plan
(background light and props). I would happily work with her again.
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