Music Man Guitar IMG_9902

This image is one in a portfolio of guitar photographs.

Some of the images shot in extreme close-up reveal the industrial

design aspects of musical instruments -- a perspective not normally

visible to the lay music lover.

Thanks for looking. All comments and ratings are appreciated.

Nice workmanship on this bass! Well captured Kartik!

Kartik,

If the purpose of this photo is to sell the bass guitar and show it was made in the USA, then you did a great job.

The wood on the neck is well lit. The wood stands out against the black background. The tuning pegs do not show well so this is a problem. This is ok for product selling on the web, Craigslist or eBay.

The photo lacks any artistic creativity and has problems that could be easily fixed with a little work.

The tuning pegs almost vanish against the black, they are like mirrors reflecting only black. I suggest to make this image better, have the tuning pegs all turned back at the same angle and have them reflecting a light or strobe to create a catchlight to make them pop. You could have these angled to a large reflector so the mirror like tuning peg wings could catch a large reflector, you could even experiment with some gel packs on the lighting of the reflector. If using color, think of a color that will compliment other colors in the photo. There is a lot of info on the web on color combinations.

The solid black background is ok, but in this image it does not really feel like a low key lighting photo, it does make the guitar neck pop but just makes the image look flat, like it is being offered for sale on eBay. 

Going with a little variation of dark tones and texture with bokeh in the background, perhaps some burgundy to black tones created with a cloth, and of course have a lower F-stop to open the lens with enough depth of field to have the neck sharp but the background far enough back to be a soft bokeh.

Also think of the angles. The neck is held up almost straight and flat. It makes for a flat image, great for selling on eBay.

I suggest angling the neck to split the dark background into triangles, think the Golden Triangle, also angle the guitar body so it is not creating a flat image.

My final thought is viewing the front of the neck is more appealing having the neck in an angle position as if being played.

If you get all your rules of composition into place, color, angle you can make the most of any image.

These are only suggestions as a constructive critique.

Cheers,

Mark