Decided to create a 'rig' for taking photos of my guitars, thought it would be good to have uniform professional looking pictures of each one for insurance purposes if nothing else.
Wanted to keep it nice and simple, the house we are in at the moment has a half converted garage (it's a room, but the walls aren't plastered etc..) and the previous tenants had fitted a cheapo looking guitar hanger, the only thing going for it was that it's black, it was way too high up though, likely to get headstock damage trying to put a guitar in there and it'd have meant extending the camera tripod very high.
The background is from Wilkinson, it's a fablon type material (self adhesive), but with a 'velvet' finish, I bought two rolls at £5 each. I drilled new holes for the guitar hanger, applied the black material over the top, refitted the guitar hanger, leaving enough room at the top and going far enough down so I could photograph my Jazz Bass too, I also applied some material to the sides where the guitar body would hang as the fit for my Midtown Custom was very tight. I then covered the screw holes, including the plastic body of the hanger and the hanger prongs themselves.
The camera was on a tripod, set for a long exposure.
Here's a picture of the setup before any editing (slight tweaks to levels etc..)
In photoshop, I cropped it, created a pure black background layer, deleted all the background I didn't want in the picture (the brickwork etc..) then used levels to work out what part of the black background needed darkening. A few more post processing tweaks later (including rotating the image) and here's two of my guitars, I'll get round to doing the rest soon.
Hopefully the above might be useful to someone wanting to take some pictures of their guitars, if you want any more detail about any of the above, let me know
Dave.
Comments
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
Many guitars have a re-sale value. Some you'll never want to sell.
Stockist of: Earvana & Graphtech nuts, Faber Tonepros & Gotoh hardware, Fatcat bridges. Highwood Saddles.
Pickups from BKP, Oil City & Monty's pickups.
Expert guitar repairs and upgrades - fretwork our speciality! www.felineguitars.com. Facebook too!
The black of the guitar should be different enough to seperate it from the background
Also, if you're taking photos with an eye to insurance, make sure you have a few shots of you and each guitar together. Just in case the insurers demand proof that you ever actually had them.
Seriously: If you value it, take/fetch it yourself
They would insist on that?
Fortunately I'd kept the instruction manual separate from the watch and it's box (the box was taken as well) and this was sufficient to them to pay out.
Things like the final inspection tag on a PRS would probably suffice. To be fair, the date the photo was taken could be evidence also.
I'd rather err on the side of too much proof, incase the unthinkable should happen.
Incidentally, the burglars who took my watch left an American Vintage Reissue '62 Strat which was on a stand and my genuine '63 Fiesta Red Strat which was in its case under the bed! That said, this was a long time ago. I suppose now they'd Google the item off their phone if unsure as to whether it's worth nicking....