Well, I made the cut

[LK155]

Being a member of a local camera club, I've been messing around with photographs for a couple of years.  Lightroom is my editor of choice, with occasional assistance from Topaz AI software.  Recently I was made aware of an upcoming art exhibition, named Call Out For Colour, at a gallery not too far away, and I decided to enter the photograph you see below of my blue H150 20th Anniversary.  This will be a juried exhibition, with cash prize money at stake.  The show opens in early March and runs for 7 weeks.

Got an email from the gallery last week saying my entry has been accepted.  Wasn't expecting this.  Out of 220+ entries (paintings, photos, and other works of art), they only accepted 48.  Whoopee!   The print I'm entering shows this piece of the guitar a bit larger than life-size, and has such amazing depth that it just looks like waves in the wood.  Click on this image to see what I mean.  Heritage artistry at its best!

 

 

 

 

[tsp17]

Fantastic image!

[ElChoad]

It's like the ocean. Only without all the crap in it. ?

[Steiner]

They say music is art.  I believe art starts with the guitar.  You've captured it beautifully LK155!  +1.

[Gitfiddler]

Awesome photo!  It looks like the blue wood grain has movement.

[bolero]

That's a great shot!

What are the print dimensions?

And good luck!

[bolero]

The black negative space resembles the Heritage pickguard shape. I wonder if that's where they got it from?

Anybody know?

[LK155]

8 minutes ago, bolero said:

That's a great shot!

What are the print dimensions?

And good luck!

 

Thanks.

The print is 20" x 12".   With a 3" white mat and fairly small black frame, the finished work is about 28" x 20".  

They wanted a photo of the photo.  I sent them a 20mb copy of the image itself.  What's going to the exhibition is the framed print.

[Dick Seacup]

Great image, Lyle! You just know the jury is going to be standing around, stroking their goatees or sipping their Chardonnay, going, "What do you think he meant by this?" Or, "Obviously, it's a commentary on striving being the root of all suffering and simultaneously the source of all satisfaction." And, "A fantastic allegory for the timeless plight of the human condition in all its Sisyphean glory!"

Break a leg, brother! 

 

Edit to add: If you have to give it a title, I strongly encourage "Amber Waves of Grain." You know, just to mess with their heads. 

[yoslate]

There's the compositional yin/yang symmetry, done with engineering precision, contrasting the gorgeous natural rhythm of the maple.  And the color of the finish on that guitar, a distinctly stunning lapis palette!  John is certainly on a roll with his "Sisyphean glory," a glory roll, if you will.  And this Chardonnay is just terrific!  Best of luck in the show, Lyle!

[skydog52]

Yeah what these wordsmiths said………… Congratulations on the shot and the guitar!

[SouthernCanuck]

Kind of Blue.

Needs Miles Davis on repeat beside the framed photo.

Total winner.

S_C

[Genericmusic]

[skydog]

What would you suggest for a decent light for an amateur for guitar pics?

[chico]

nice work Lyle

[LK155]

1 hour ago, skydog said:

What would you suggest for a decent light for an amateur for guitar pics?

That particular shot was taken with morning sun in an east-facing bedroom.  The guitar was on the floor, and the light was diffused nicely by a semi-diaphanous white window shade.  I have learned the hard way to avoid overhead lights and use of a flash.  Outside light on a cloudy day isn't bad, though. 

[LK155]

The blue guitar photo turned out so well that I tried it again a few weeks later.

This one's the H535, and although this shot's sorta OK, it doesn't have the impact of the blue one.

 

[skydog52]

54 minutes ago, LK155 said:

The blue guitar photo turned out so well that I tried it again a few weeks later.

This one's the H535, and although this shot's sorta OK, it doesn't have the impact of the blue one.

 

That’s a nice shot. Red has always looked better in person to me. It just doesn’t translate well in pictures. 

[rockabilly69]

That blue shot is sweet. Those wavy grain lines look like ripplin' waters. Make sure to post if you bring home the gold!!!

Not a good shot of my DuoJet, but it's the first blue guitar that I've ever owned and it's kind of changed my mind about blue on guitars in general...

 

 

 

 

[TalismanRich]

Some people just have an eye for composition.  

On 2/21/2023 at 8:55 PM, LK155 said:

The blue guitar photo turned out so well that I tried it again a few weeks later.

This one's the H535, and although this shot's sorta OK, it doesn't have the impact of the blue one.

I think the blue one works because it doesn't look like a guitar.   I would bet that a lot of people would not be able to identify the subject, but instead would be drawn to the waves of blue.   When you look at the 535, you definitely know it's a guitar first, then you start to look at the wood.

 

[bolero]

Yeah what Rich said!

The image itself is captivating, beyond the subject material. Good eye, Lyle!

[Kuz]

I used to be a serious amateur photographer.  I took a class that Nikon had on photography and composition.   The class said there are three rules to follow for a great photograph:

1) have a foreground that leads the eye to the main subject.

2) don't include the entire subject in the frame to allow our minds to imagine what the rest of the subject is or looks like.

3) the best way to improve your photos is to get closer to the subject.

So Lyle; 1) CHECK 2) CHECK 3) CHECK

I REALLY LOVE this photo and agree with others on the contrast, the ying-yang, and especially the fact that it doesn't look like a guitar. 

SERIOUSLY, Heritage could use this photo on the cover of their catalog (or the home page of their website since no one does printed catalogs anymore).

GREAT JOB!!!

[bsck1]

Beautiful image!  Well done.  No matter what, you've got a real winner.

[LK155]

6 hours ago, Kuz said:

I used to be a serious amateur photographer.  I took a class that Nikon had on photography and composition.   The class said there are three rules to follow for a great photograph:

1) have a foreground that leads the eye to the main subject.

2) don't include the entire subject in the frame to allow our minds to imagine what the rest of the subject is or looks like.

3) the best way to improve your photos is to get closer to the subject.

 

Thanks, John.  I'm glad you approve.  I've found that taking photographs is relatively easy, but creating a unique, interesting, and presentable photograph takes some effort.

Cool that the Nikon class had three rules.  After I acquired my latest camera (Sony RX10M4) and fiddled around with photo editing for a year or so, I took a course in competition photo judging.  Not that I had any interest in becoming a judge, but rather I thought it would be a good way to determine exactly what trained judges consider desirable traits in photographs.  What I learned from that course is that a photograph is scored by a minimum of three judges as follows:

> composition (space, leading lines, placement, depth), max 3 points

> technical merit (colour, light, exposure, sharpness, technique), max 3 points

> impact (mood, imagination, subject matter, story), max 3 points

> plus a discretionary additional point for outstanding achievement.

The three judges' scores are added together, then divided by three.  So maximum 10 points, which was apparently never awarded.  Their minimum score, for an absolutely dreadful photo, was 5.0.

That course was put on by the Ontario Council of Camera Clubs, a sort of governing body for all the provincial clubs, and until Covid, they staged an annual competition.  Photos taken by a member of any camera club in Ontario could be entered.  So in 2021 I submitted that blue guitar pic.  They had over 4,000 entries, from which they selected 900 for further consideration, including mine.  From viewing past competition results, I knew that marks of 9 and above were exceedingly rare, and the highest mark ever awarded was 9.5.  So I was very interested to see what kind of marks my photo would receive.  It took several months before the results were revealed, but I was extremely pleased to see that their three judges gave my shot scores of 8.0, 8.0, and 7.0.  I would have been happy with 6.5.

I find the whole photography thing requires much less of my time to produce an acceptable result, compared to writing, playing, and recording a song.  Getting a song done can take me weeks, if not months, and yet an hour or two editing a photo is usually sufficient.  Big difference.

 

[Kuz]

Lyle,

Thanks for that background on photo judging, very interesting and congrats on your photo.

A book that I find very interesting and amazing is Jim Brandenburg's "Chased By The Light".  Brandenburg is based in Northern Minnesota and is an award winning wolf photographer.  "Chased By The Light" was published in the early 2000s.  At the time, he was burned out with processing hundreds of exposures that he would take everyday, editing down the best ones to then be "develop" and process digitally by him. 

So he gave himself a challenge; go into the field everyday for 90 days straight and only take ONE exposure a day (not a single subject, but only ONE click of the shutter per day).  The ONE exposure would be it so he had to make a daily decision on the subject, the lighting, the composition, ect,.  He only intended for this challenge to be a exercise for his craft and means to get his passion back for photography.  But by forcing these restrictions on himself yielded amazing results so he published the book.   The images are amazing and the little stories of each day's effort to decide on which subject to use for that day's are very intriguing.  Beautiful photographs of N. Minnesota's landscapes.