Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello Hesh,


Hi Pierre and thanks a million my friend for your very valued sharing here. This is VERY helpful to me, very!

I'm a rank amateur photographer who enjoys the heck out of photography I just never really applied myself to learning all that much about it. So feel free to tell me what will improve my results and you will find a very interested student here.

The Hoya I thought was a bit junky and it was not what I ordered from Amazon (I complained and they took it off my bill) I ordered a Promaster. This lens is a 49 mm. But they didn't send me a Promaster and instead sent the Hoya....

Would you please comment on a really good circular polarizer please? I do a lot of orchid photography since I grow them too. So a CR is useful there too for the colors to pop. This was my first time out with this Hoya and I rotated it until the glare on black plastic parts went away.

Tuesday I'm picking up a Sony 100 - 400 mm super telephoto for my mirrorless A7 so I have LAS as well as GAS...

As I think you know Lutherie is my second career but it was baptism by fire with 50 something guitars built, a three year apprenticeship in a busy repair practice and our own business with this being our eighth year now and we service around 1,100 guitars, mandos and banjos annually. Our minimum service is a very comprehensive set-up and we do everything else as well but shy away from some things because they are either too much potential liability or not profitable.

My business partner is David Collins and he's considered by many to be one of the best there is. You would be very surprised at who calls us and asks for advice because Dave is there. We are always very happy to help.

So as you can see my pics suck because I'm a rank amateur at photography.

Let me know on the CR recommendation? My camera store friend has the Promaster in a 49 mm let me know if you like that one or what you do like and thanks again!!!

PS: Always happy to help you too with Lutherie stuff just PM me here my friend. I also hope that you and yours are staying safe and sound in these scary times. This is my 29th day self isolating in my home........ but I'm alive and the freezer is filled with good stuff. I also have toilet paper and I'm one of the reasons many here don't have toilet paper.

Very cool Pierre and thanks again for all of your help!

When we can come back out in the light of day again and this virus is history (wishful thinking here....) you have an open invitation to come visit our shop and hang out with us. We will put you to work too since you are already a pro in the trade and I think you will have a great time.

(…)

These days though we are sadly closed down and ordered by our governor to stay that way until further notice. I understand though and being 63 I'm not taking any chances.

(…)

I started working on guitars when I was around 12 too . My first real guitar was a Fender Mustang that I took apart, painted and put back together and then learned "I'm 18" by Alice Cooper.


Thanks again my friend, stay safe.

I'd love to drop by one of these days. I'd be a nice change from my habit of flying over or changing planes in Chicago en route to my favorite trekking spots in Utah!

Being 62 myself, and prone to pneumonia, I can relate to your feelings... I have closed shop over 3 weeks ago and dearly miss the daily interaction with guitar-loving people. Now I'm working on my own guitars, and being afflicted with GAS you can rest assured I won't be out of work for quite a few weeks more.

Now you won't believe this. I got my first electric, a cheap Raven LP Custom copy, then graduated a year or two later to an ES-330, then a couple of years after that got a '59 Les Paul... for all of 300$ CDN. This was in 74. Those were the guitars I teared apart to learn... including the LP. Now, thanks to Gruhn's columns and articles (this was even before Rare Bird) in GP, I was fully aware of what it was, and applied due reverence to it. But I did learn a lot working on this beauty. It was only fitting to have Mr. Gruhn do a full appraisal of it when I finally decided to sell it 20 years ago, full circle.

Here she is (she's definitely a "she", and is currently on sale somewhere in Germany):




Pic dates from '83. It's much more pale now, but that was what it looked like back then. This is a guitar that has played countless Cream riffs and Who and Zeppelin songs.

Now. How many guys do you know that got to hone their setup chops on a '59 Les Paul?


Pierre

Hey Hesh. Said with love and respect, but those photos are atrocious. Good news is you can fix it easily. It is not an equipment issue.

The problem is composition.

As a photographer (or more importantly, as a print maker) you need to look at the edges of the picture. For example, you have a toggle switch in the background that is JUST cut off. In another we can see ALMOST the front edge of the Guitar. Don’t cut something off unless you mean to cut it off. Try not to leave things visually hanging. The casual viewer is not looking at the edges, but issues like those cause a sense of unease and randomness that just comes off as amateurish. Most people could never tell you why.

Similarly the background fights the guitar. The contrast of beige carpet and black wall creates a horizontal element that is so strong it dominates. Worse, it doesn’t line up or flow with any of the guitar’s lines. The result, again is that it feels unsettled.

Make sure when you compose a print that you look at the whole print. You want the viewer to look at those cool pickups and the flawless finish. Make sure you aren’t creating visual noise to compete.

Hope that doesn’t come across as harsh. I think you and I have exchanged enough ideas on this forum that you know there is nothing mean spirited in what I said. Honest advice from some dude on a forum. Feel free to ignore.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Instead of ignoring your reply to me I'm going to share something with you that may surprise some and not so much others. I'm frequently encouraging here and complimentary of things that are clearly important to others in my efforts to encourage them, help them and not.... never... leave the place worse off than I found it. If something is important enough to me I may PM someone but usually, the vast majority of the time I recognize in advance, because I tend to care about other people.... that being overly critical and using words such as "atrocious" may do more harm than good. Words like this very well may shut someone down to me and then I lose my ability to do what I set out to do and that is be helpful to them as many were to me on this forum years ago.

None of these photos were about composition, that's off the mark. They were as stated to try out a circular polarizer and I used my work bench as a stage but it was not intended to be a studio set producing highly composed results.

I'm an amateur photographer who is just learning and I said that in subsequent replies to other replies here. This was a learning exercise for me with a focus... being on the use of a circular polarizer. Composition was never my intent as you so eloquently pointed out mincing no words.

I can't recall another time in the entire history of this forum that someone described someone else's work as "atrocious." That's not in my view why are we here and if that's what you have to offer please ignore my posts.

Thanks