Dissecting "I Still got the Blues..."

As I mentioned in my last post, I've been taking a few pictures of my acoustic guitar. I decided to get something a bit dramatic, playing with some light and shadows.

Continue for details...

I recently bought a backdrop stand and background, and set that up to get a "clean" background. As you see in the photo, the backdrop is wrinkled and creased. I actually decided to leave it like that as I thought it'd be more interesting than one that had no creases/wrinkles. If you feel differently about it, let me know in the comments.

I set up the background, and then thought about the light. To get the shadow of the guitar in the location it is, I placed a light pretty low to the ground. Then I gridded and flagged it so that the light only hit the guitar. You can get a idea of where the light was going by looking at the spotlight effect on the background.

I initially shot this with just the one light. The result:


I really liked the result - thinking that that would be final shot, I named it "Coz I got the Blues". As I looked over it, the side of the guitar having no details bothered me.

I set up the shot again, but this time lit the side as well. To light the side, I used a snooted speedlite. The result is the photograph at the top of the post.

Since it was the second attempt, the title became "I Still got the Blues..."

Here is a shot I took of the setup. There are notes on Flickr.