Big Pixel Pusher

Welcome

to my personal blog. Here I post examples of my photography and writing. I specialize in making unique and highly detailed photographs. Notice I said making and not taking. Yes I take photos but a lot of time and work is involved in pushing and punishing the pixels in my images to achieve the look I like.

Please feel free make comments about any of my words or photos. I enjoy constructive critiques, learning about locations to shoot or photography techniques. Click on the "Share Article" link to share any of my photos via Flickr, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

Want to use one of my posts in your own blog? No problem, but please make sure it links back to the original post here and do the right thing and give me credit. Don't copy my words, crop the images, remove the watermarks or claim my work as your own. This has happened more times than I can count so I've had to report copyright violations to ISP's and regrettably the violators blog is usually taken down.

Can't we all just get along?

Entries in Story time (1)

Friday

Jan062023

Taylor 414ce Guitar

Friday, January 6, 2023 at 12:49PM | in

Flash,

Guitar,

Music,

Taylor

I acquired this beautiful acoustic/electric Taylor guitar from my local (now out of business) guitar shop. I had wandered in one day just to browse and was not shopping for anything in particular. I quickly saw they were having some type of issue with their point-of-sale terminal and were unable to make any sales because of this. I asked a few questions and they seemed receptive to obtaining some help, so I was able to troubleshoot what eventually turned out to be a network connectivity issue and ran to a local electronics store to buy an ethernet card and some network cabling for the balky terminal. Long story short I was able to fix the problem for them in a about 3 hours. They were very grateful and asked what I was going to charge them for resolving things. I told them just to reimburse me for the ethernet card and we could call it even. They insisted on compensating me for my time and expertise, so we mutually agreed on bartering my time against some store merchandise. The owner asked what brand of guitar I preferred; I told him I admired Taylor guitars. He informed me that they had just received a shipment that had not yet been opened or inspected. We looked at 4 guitars and I chose this one. They inspected the guitar and had their luthier make sure it was intonated properly. They then returned it to its case and handed it to me. Honestly, this guitar is much nicer than a player of my ability requires, but I have loved having it and it’s sound has seasoned beautifully as the years have gone by. It features a Sitka Spruce Top, Ovangkol Back and Sides, Tropical Mahogany Neck, West African Crelicam Ebony Fretboard, Expression System 2 Electronics, Venetian Cutaway and included a Taylor Deluxe Hardshell Black Case.

STROBIST: I photographed this guitar in a completely dark room using 5 wireless flash units slaved to my sony camera. The one hidden behind my guitar had a blue gel to give a splash of complementary color. I took quite a few tries to balance the power of each flash and to get the exposure I wanted.