When I was 15, I asked my parents if I could have a guitar. They told me sure - just get a job and buy one. That summer, I started working at the McDonald's down the street trading grease burns for minimum wage. I didn't spend a single penny I earned there until I could afford the one I wanted. It took a year and a half of part-time work while going to high school to save up enough, but reaching my goal was at that point the most satisfying day of my life. I walked into the guitar shop, literally handed them over two thousand dollars in cash, and walked out with what is still one of my most favorite possessions; a Heritage Cherry Sunburst Les Paul Standard named Clyde. I quit my job at McDonald's the next day.
I never did become a rock star, but music has remained a lifelong passion. When I saw the "musicians" challenge pop up, I knew that I had to shoot something. The fact that there had never even been a musicians challenge before gave me even more motivation to enter.
I actually go to a fair number of concerts around town (being in L.A. is great for this) and I do a lot of concert photography too. Many times the lighting in the smaller venues is downright awful, but sometimes you get lucky and end up with a really killer shot. I had very little time this week to work on a challenge and I didn't have plans to see any bands, so I decided I would do a tribute to my guitar instead.
The challenge was musicians, however - not musical instruments - so I needed people to be the focal point. I went with two instead of just a single guitar player because the challenge title was plural and I must've somehow forgotten to properly read the description. I also wanted it to feel like it could pass for a live shot, though, and thought more than one person might help with that. I was too busy over the weekend to put anything together, so I waited until Sunday night to try to figure it out. I called up two friends, asked if they'd be willing to play "rock stars" for a day, and started trying to come up with some sort of idea.
I still wanted to find a way to feature the guitar somehow without hitting the viewer over the head with it. I came up with the idea of making the lighting around the two musicians mimic the distinct sunburst color of the guitar; paying tribute in a more abstract way. I'm not sure if people will find it too saturated or not (rock show lighting is pretty colorful anyway), but I got the exact look I was going for and am really happy I could come up with a way to honor my instrument. It may sound stupid, but it does mean a lot to me.
Very fortunately, I did have access to a rehearsal space where I could shoot the scene. Unfortunately, it's basically a big black box with nothing interesting to look at. I needed to make the stage area actually read as a a stage, so I did what I could to give it some depth and texture. I didn't have access to any guitar amps on such zero-notice (and I was pretty frustrated with this), so instead I just placed some tour cases in the back, rolled over the piano that was already in the room, and took the speaker they had and placed it on the floor as some sort of interactive prop. Finally, rolls of bubble wrap were laid out and taped to the ceiling to provide some background texture and catch some of the lights for additional color. Luckily, there were already some overhead lights in the space which helped tremendously to get everything how I wanted without having to do any crazy rigging.
The two subjects are lit by a strobe with a softbox on the left and a bare strobe for subtle rim/fill on the right. The continuous lights in the space provided hair light and the overall ambient color by illuminating smoke from a fog machine. The light in the middle was gelled yellow and one on either side were gelled red, providing the gentle "sunburst" gradient to mimic the guitar. I shot it at 200mm at an f/2.8 just so I could shallow up that background a bit and not make it feel like we were up against a wall. I also wanted to shoot it down low and from a distance so it looked more like someone from the crowd's perspective.
There is a fair bit about this image I would change if I could do it over and had more time (I'm not going to make a list; I'm sure the commenters will do it for me!), but I was able to get what I wanted out of the lighting (and thus my tribute) so I am still happy with it. I wasn't about to miss this challenge even under the constraints. And yes, that's Clyde. :)
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