About the Image

This industrial commercial style advertising image features a custom acoustic guitar during its assembly process known as a “glue up.” It shows parts of a guitar that most people never see and and shows the level of workmanship needed. It is using light, shadow and color blended in an interesting way.

During this stage, various parts of the guitar are being carefully glued into place. The round pegs visible in the image are part of the “jig” used to secure the outer curved sections of the guitar, ensuring they maintain the the proper shape of the guitar throughout the gluing process.

I was hired by a producer to shoot “Art” or “Beauty” photographs for a custom guitar company based in North Carolina, USA. Upon entering the workshop, I walked into the shop and the first thing I see is an acoustic guitar in a glue up jig, and I immediately knew it had compelling visuals.

To illuminate the scene, I used a Lowel DP light, a 1000 Watt “Hot Light”* fixture inside an Extra Small Chimera softbox, serving as the primary light source. The size of the softbox was important, if I used a larger softbox, the light would have been everywhere. I wanted to severly limit where this light went.

Additionally, natural daylight from a nearby window, approximately 3 feet (1 meter) to the right of the guitar, cast a cool blue hue into the composition.

In photography, the “color temperature” which is measured in Kelvin degrees of light significantly impacts the final appearance of the image. The Lowel fixture emits light at around 3200° Kelvin, providing a warm yellow-red tone. In contrast, the daylight from the window measures about 8000°+ Kelvin, resulting in a cold, blue light.

This mixed color lighting scenario offered a wonderful photographic opportunity. I adjusted the image file to balance** towards the 3200° Kelvin warmth of the Lowel light, enhancing the blueness of the daylight to achieve a color contrast that complements the industrial aesthetic of the setting. I also made an additional adjustment to enhance the blue as I often do.

* The term “Hot Light” is when using these types of light, tungsten, the lamp and fixture are very hot to the touch. It will burn you. Out of the 1000 watts used, 200 are light and the rest, 800 watts, are heat generated from the tungsten filament inside the lamp. The lamp is also called a light bulb but technically lamp is the correct terminology.

** The term “Balance” means I adjusted the color of the scene to its correct color. In other words, the color of the wood in the guitar is correct.

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See BTS photos below.

For Photographers

The Gear:
A canon camera set to 1250 ISO and 1/50 of a second shutter speed with a Canon 24-70mm zoom lens set to 30mm at F8.

The Light:
Extra small Chimera softbox with a grid using a Lowel DP 1000 watt light. Also some skylight through the window casting a strong blue light.

See BTS photo below.

The blue tone is from a very close window. The scene is illuminated with a softbox (see below), which is an opaque fabric stretched on a frame with a white translucent fabric. This “Box” is fitted onto a high powered (1000 watts) Tungsten light fixture. It gives the soft light you see here in most of the photograph. Tungsten light will range from 2000° Kelvin color temperature (Very red/yellow) to 3400° Kelvin (red/yellow) color temperature

Daylight is considered to be between 5000° to 5500° Kelvin. In this case, outside is brilliant sunlight and there is no direct sunlight coming through the window. So all the window light is coning from the very blue sky, likely 10,000° K or higher. And that is what you see in the photo. Knowing this allowed me to get a very interesting photo without needing to putting a gel on another light source.

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