Clinical Shots

As I mentioned last time, you should start with understanding what you want to accomplish with your shots.  If you are trying to sell the guitar, then the ‘clinical’ shots are probably best.  Put the guitar someplace with a very neutral background so that the viewer can really focus on the instrument and then take full-length shots of the guitar from the front and back and then close-ups of any areas that you want to draw their attention to.  There are a few simple pointers to consider here.

1. Clean the guitar. Use guitar polish to remove fingerprints and smudges on the body and the neck.  Don’t forget to clean the headstock too!
2. Remove the strap. It is usually a distraction and could cover up things you want the viewer to see
3. Use a guitar stand to hold the guitar but try to use a stand that doesn’t obscure the guitar itself.    On Stage Stands has a nice stand that doesn’t obscure the headstock though there are a number of stands that would work well here
4. You want to have a neutral background so that nothing else in the shot distracts from the guitar itself and so that the background won’t make the guitar’s color look wrong.  Photography supply stores sell large rolls of neutral colored paper (dark or light grays work very well).  Hang up the paper behind the guitar and let it go under the stand and it should be great.
5. Use a tripod. If you can get your hands on a tripod, the shots will be significantly better.  When the light isn’t perfect, the shot will often take longer than you can hold the camera still and a tripod will hold the camera steady which will make the shot sharper.  If you can’t get a tripod, then put the camera on a table or some other stable surface in front of the guitar so that you aren’t holding it when it takes the shot.  For clinical shots, in particular, you want everything to be in sharp focus, so you will want to use a higher f-stop on the camera but that can make the shutter speed longer which could make it blurrier but a tripod or steady surface will help here.

With these things in mind, you can get very nice shots of your guitar that let you see all of its natural beauty.  Take several shots from each position in case one of them turns out blurry from camera shake.  Also try zooming in and out some so you can choose how much detail you have later, though if you use photo editing software like Apple’s iPhoto, Microsoft’s Windows Live Photo Gallery or Adobe’s Photoshop Lightroom you can always crop it later.

Here are some example shots using the guidelines above.

Sexy/Artsy Shots

If your goal is to take pictures that really show off the curves and details of your guitar, there are a few more things you can do.  You still want to make sure you clean the guitar, remove the strap and use a tripod, but you can also get more creative with the backgrounds and the angles of the shots.  The ‘sexy shots’ are defined by close-ups of particular parts of the instrument and more interesting angles of the guitar.  If you think about how fashion photos look (or even Playboy, for that matter), the shots are about showing off the curves and the lines and creating an enticing mood.  Your goal is to capture that same mood but with a guitar instead of a model.

With that in mind, here are a few more pointers that can help.

1. Choose your background. Some guitar cases have crushed velvet interiors and are great for this though the cases that are more form fitting will obscure the sides of the guitar. Larger, rectangular cases have the added advantage that the top of the case provides a nice backdrop as well.  If you want to get more full shots of the guitar, though, you can get some velvety or silky cloth from a fabric store and use it in your shots.   If you have access to nice hardwood floors, they often will accentuate the guitar as well but you need to be careful about what is behind it.  Takashi Sato is a professional photographer who does a lot of work for Fender and he uses hardwood floors a lot in his shots.
2. Soften the focus on the edges. If you can adjust the aperture of the camera (also known as the f-stop) then you can go with a wider aperture (lower f-stop value) and then you will have a narrower part of the shot in focus and the parts that are outside of that area will be blurred.  This can lead to some great effects, helping you accentuate part of the guitar while letting the other parts get progressively more out of focus.  Just make sure that the part that is in focus is what you want to be accentuating.   If you want to get a shot that is in focus for the whole guitar, just use a higher f-stop but make sure you have a tripod because this will also decrease the shutter speed and make the shot take longer.
3. Work the angles. Play around with setting your guitar at different angles in the shot.  You can use a variety of items like beanbags, boxes or whatever to support the guitar but try to keep those supporting items out of the shot.  The key to the sexy shots is getting the interesting angles.  Try lots of different shots – from the body looking down the neck, from the headstock looking down at the guitar, over the controls towards the pickups, etc.
4. Adjust your color.  As I mentioned in the first article, you want to make sure you get rid of any color cast that the lighting you’re using creates.  Usually, your photo editing software will help you do that, but as you’re reviewing your shots but make sure that you watch for this and correct it.  Having a little bit of neutral white or light gray in the shot will give you something that the software can use to figure out what the colors should be.  I’ll talk about lighting more in a future post.

Here are some photos using these techniques.

Rickenbacker in its Case

Stratocaster from the head

Les Paul Close up

Rickenbacker in Repose

There is no right or wrong with these more artistic kinds of shots and if you’re looking for more ideas on how to shoot your equipment, take a look at some of the catalogs that the manufacturers put out.  Fender and Gibson both have some nice desktop wallpaper shots that may give you some ideas.

Now go ahead and give it a try!  When you get the shots you like upload them to your pages on the Tweed Case and show us what you got. If you have questions or comments, please post them below.

The first step in taking a great picture is figuring out why you want to take the picture in the first place.  You will take different shots if you’re trying to sell the guitar on ebay than if you’re trying to show off the beauty of your instrument.  Buyers want to know what it looks like and what condition it is in so a number of good “clinical” shots of a guitar are good in that situation.  You’ll want some closeups of things that are especially good about the guitar as well as where there may be nicks or dings in the finish so that they don’t come back later and say you didn’t tell them about those issues.  If you’re shooting a guitar for Tweed Case or to show your new axe to your friends, then you’re probably not as interested in clinical shots, you want sexy shots!  Something that shows off the instruments curves and natural beauty.

Common Pitfalls

Either way, there are a few pitfalls you want to avoid in your pictures.  Here are a few pictures I got off of ebay (apologies if these belong to any of you out there) that show a few key things you want to avoid.

Too Dark

Both of these pictures are too dark. A picture can’t show they features of a guitar if it is too dark. In the case of the Danelectro there just isn’t enough light in the room for the camera to see much detail in the picture at all.  The other guitar was shot with a flash though the flash was not strong enough and it was also aimed too high.  You might not be able to tell from this shot, but the guitar is actually a nice blue color.  If you’re going to take a picture, make sure there is enough light and natural light (or photography lights that resemble natural light) so that your shot will not only look like a guitar, but the color will match what you see.

Too Many Things Competing in the Shot

The lighting in these shots is a bit better than the first ones, but there is so much activity around the guitar that the user is much more likely to be looking at the carpet, the case, or the stuff on the dresser than the guitars. It’s a shame, too, because both guitars look really nice.  You want to make sure that the person looking at your photo will be looking at the guitar so move all of that other stuff away and try to surround the guitar with a much more neutral background.

Wrong Color

The finish of the guitar is often one of its best selling points and is probably the thing that initially drew you to it but if the picture is taken with the wrong light and not corrected, the viewer will never see that.  This picture is too dark, but on top of that, the guitar looks yellow even though it is actually white.  Most photo software packages have very simple tools for correcting this problem and remove this color cast, usually with just one click.  While this warm look is sometimes great for pictures of people, it is almost never good for a picture of a guitar.

How to avoid these problems

Some of these issues are easy to fix.  When you are setting up your picture, make sure there aren’t other items or very busy patterns in the shot.  If there are. move them or move the guitar to get them out of your shot.  Lighting is generally pretty easy to fix as well – make sure there is enough by either shooting outside on a nice day or even an overcast day (the diffuse light of a cloudy day limits reflections and harsh shadows).  Alternatively, you can just turn on more lights or borrow an inexpensive photography lighting system.  If you see that the color of your guitar in the picture isn’t right then you can correct that using an application like iPhoto, Windows Photo Gallery or, perhaps, the software that came with your camera.

The next post will include some tips on composing the shot — positioning the guitar in the shot and some tips on how to make it more interesting for both clinical shots and artsy/sexy shots.

If you have questions or comments, please post them below.

Sometimes, finding out the year your instrument was manufactured can be quite a surprise.  In the summer of 1985, I bought a new Fender Jazz bass from a music store in Dayton, Ohio and it was my main bass for quite a few years.  Last year I took it to a local music store to get a tune up and in the process we looked up the serial number to figure out when it was made.  It turns out that it was made in 1978 and it had just been sitting in music stores for a few years before I bought it.  The value of a 1978 Jazz Bass, though, is actually a fair amount higher than the value of a 1985 Jazz Bass so it was good that I had found this out.

How did we determine that it was made in 1978?  There are several ways of figuring it out, but the simplest way is to look at the serial number.  Fenders from this time used a pretty simple scheme.  The first letter in the serial number tells you the decade and the next number tells you the year so a serial number that started with S8 meant it was from the eighth year of the ‘S’eventies.  Ones that started with E were made in the eighties, N for nineties, Z for the 2000′s.  Of course, there are some exceptions to each of these cases, but that model works out for most of their American made guitars use that system.

Each guitar manufacturer has their own way of tracking serial numbers.  Sometimes they are just sequential and you need to figure out where your guitar’s serial number fits within each year’s production numbers.  Other manufacturers will encode the year within the serial number or just start out with the year as part of their serial number.

So how do you find out?  Well there are lots of resources on the internet to help you do this and here are some links to ones that I have found helpful, grouped by manufacturer.

• B.C. Rich
• Epiphone
• Fender
• G&L
• Gibson
• Gretsch
• Ibanez
• Martin
• Musicman (Ernie Ball)
• Paul Reed Smith
• Rickenbacker
• Squier
• Taylor
• Yamaha

In addition to these pages, there are a few nice general resources for figuring out serial numbers on the internet.  Vintage Guitar Pro has a nice list of resources and the Guitar Dater Project is working on some simple online tools where you can just choose the manufacturer and enter your serial number and it will give you the year.

Now, when you add your guitars and basses at the TweedCase you can not only enter your serial number but also the correct year of manufacture.  The TweedCase site also lets you enter the date you purchased and sold your instrument so you can keep track of all of that as well!

If you find any more great resources for dating your guitars and basses, let us know in the comments below.

My favorite of the bunch is Agile Partners Guitar Toolkit.  In addition to being a great pocket reference for scales and chords, it is also a very handy tuner which is particularly useful with my new 12 string, but having a tuner in my pocket is just a great extension of the iPhone’s capabilities.

I recently tried the built in Voice Memo application on the iPhone to capture some song ideas and it worked really well.  It also lets me email the audio clip to myself so that I can keep track of it on my computer as well.

If you have found any other iPhone apps for musicians that you just can’t live without, add a comment below!

TweedCase Article Post

One of the first things I noticed as I was shooting some pictures of my guitars for the site was how tricky it is go get a shot that not only shows off the instrument but also is a compelling photograph.  I’ll be creating some posts and articles about that in the coming days and weeks so stay tuned.

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• Create an account
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Welcome to the case!

-Chris

Welcome!