[thechat] Guitar Pron - Take 1

[Luther, Ron]

Hi Gang,


I took a little time out for a mini-photo shoot last night.

I wasn't very happy with any of the 'full frontals' I shot last night. 
... Which only gives me an excuse to try again another time, right? 

;-)

([Ron armed with camera] "Honey, can you help me? I need to practice 
shooting some full frontals. They're not coming out quite right." 
....................................................... WHACK!) 


Also, the "in case" shots didn't work very well - I didn't have the 
right lighting to pull those off - it's a 'fitted' case lined with 
about 2.5 inches of very very dark ('royal'?) purple crushed velvet 
that you forcibly press the guitar into. Combine that with the highly 
reflective spruce guitar top and you have some fun technical lighting 
issues!

On the plus side, I did manage to grab a few 'pieces parts' pix that 
aren't too bad:

Here's one of the inlays high on the neck - 15th fret. (There are 
several different designs used for inlays at various positions on 
her neck.) <142k>:
http://www.fangsnclaws.com/Breedlove/Inlay.jpg


A shot of the fretboard and top binding.
(I believe the dark wood is Koa.) <201k>:
http://www.fangsnclaws.com/Breedlove/Binding.jpg


And a shot of her lovely backside (where I should have cropped another 
1/4 inch off the top) <114k>:
http://www.fangsnclaws.com/Breedlove/Pick.jpg


Okay. Now, I'm not particularly pleased with this last shot ... the 
color registration is totally wrong ... (which is why I included the 
"backside" shot above - at least the color is more 'true' there - 
she's definately blonde and not auburn) ... the 'hotspot' and top edge 
issues are annoying ... the 'depth of field' I used is insufficient 
for the shot - so I {even more obviously} lose focus in at least 3 of 
the 4 corners (Okay - so I *may* have also tippled a few before the 
shoot as well.) ... and, naturally, the composition itself is fairly 
uninteresting.

So why even bother sharing?  You'll see.  It's a 'challenging' shot 
to take. It's also, as poor as it is, the best example illustrating 
this that I've seen so far.

Background ... I noticed something last week that I didn't notice when 
I bought my guitar.  (And I was 'jack jawing' with Joel about the 
difficulty of photographing it the other day so I just had to give it 
a whirl!) I've read a couple of notes from guitar folks saying things 
like "Dude! You won't believe the amazing '3D' finish on this thing!" 
or "This picture really doesn't do justice to the spactacular '3D' 
finish on this guitar!"

I figured it was a bunch of balogna.

[Guitar players ... (how to put this) ... don't *always* live the 
'healthiest' of lifestyles ... so I just kind of assumed their 
perception was ... uh ... 'botanically enhanced'.]

Anyway, last week I finally noticed that my guitar has one of these 
'amazing 3D' finishes!

{And it took you a month to notice that because? 
... Who? ... Me? ... 
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.}

Here it is, then ... if you look at this next picture in poor light 
... with one eye crossed ... the other tied behind your back ... your 
monitor turned off ... squint... and move your head back and forth 
like an angry 'Retha Franklin ... then the wood almost looks "wrinkled" 
... or "pleated" ... kind of like the sort of fabric folds you see in 
Austrian lace curtains <236k>:
http://www.fangsnclaws.com/Breedlove/3D_Back.jpg


All for now!

RonL.
(Who'll be 'guest appearing' in Chicago for a few days next week at the 
Hyperion [Essbase / Brio] software users conference. Beervolt for Tuesday 
anyone?)