Quick shout out to the guys at National Music, Inc., because they didn’t have to be cool when I came in asking if I could use their store for a photo.
Knowing I wasn’t going to buy anything, they didn’t have to share stories about how one company is using reclaimed Cyprus to make some very cool looking electric guitars (like the sixth one from the left in this photo), or ask me what I knew about music, or anything like that. But they did, and their store is amazing.
If you’re in the market for a new guitar, electric or acoustic, and live within 50 miles of Woburn, MA, I would recommend you take the drive. Great guys there who seem to really know their stuff, and the selection is really impressive. I probably captured less than ten percent of their inventory in this photo.
Check ‘em out. I think it would be worth the drive.
I love hearing stories of great customer service, and the fact they knew you were not buying made this even unusual to hear. But being a musician myself (keyboard and acoustic), I love you photo – and would love that guitar 3rd from the right!
.-= Tom@Business Class Tickets´s last blog ..Business Class Tickets =-.
Yeah, it’s a beauty. I gotta admit – I felt like taking up the guitar walking around that shop… but I have this photography hobby that seems to get in the way.
James, awesome photo and a great blog. I always struggle picking which object to focus on in shots like these and often find myself opening too wide, and focusing on the first or second object. You’ve pulled this one off perfectly. I would normally have chosen an aperture of f2.8 or less for this type of shot as I didn’t think the depth of field you’ve managed would be possible any higher – just goes to show how little I know! Can’t wait until the next time I see a line of interesting inaminate objects.
Next time you need a new memory card, come and check us out at the CameraCardStore.
Hi, Nick, I will check it out for sure.
Sometimes not knowing what is possible is half the battle. I have a serious tool with lots of customization available to me with this camera. A lot of what you see in here right now is the camera set to mostly auto-everything, then taking my chances. I try to push myself a little further every day, so that will change over time…
As for the aperture at f/5.6, that’s as low as I can dial the aperture on that lens down when I have it fully zoomed at 105 mm. It’s the kit lens, and 3.5 is as low as it goes under any circumstances.
So how did I do it?
I cropped the image down, and that emphasized the DOF.
I like it – I upgraded to a Canon 5D in July and I can’t tell you how many times the full frame sensor and 21mega pixels has allowed me to salvage an awesome crop or correct an under of over exposure. I knew adding DoF was possible using PhotoShop, but never taken the time to do it since photoshop really adds a lot of time to my workflow – hopefully they will add a blur filter into Lightroom 3.
Nick, I get it. There’s a part of me that is envy of all those megapixels! Still… if I can’t get a good image out of 12, I should probably not share the image.
To clarify, I did not add anything in PhotoShop… just cropped the image down a bit. I think you got that, but just in case.
Thank you so much for commenting in my blog yesterday James. I am working on a follow-up post inviting bloggers to write a paragraph about their favorite businesses loaded with their best anchor text leading to their best landing pages. To reward bloggers who participate I am asking them to do the same for their blogs.
I will be creating as many pages as necessary to benefit all participants. There will definitely be separate pages (with that much more linkluv) for keywordluv enabled blogs, commentluv using blogs, all dofollow blogs and then niches such as home improvement, real estate, golf, horses, product review bloggers and so on.
At a minimum each participant is guaranteed their paragraphs with all of their links (barring any that are offensive) will be published on at least six other blogs. I expect that to me more than a dozen and if we can get this off the ground it could be hundreds.
Remember Good Millwork, the company I mentioned in that post? They can supply both reclaimed deadhead sinker cypress and genuine mahogany for making guitars and other instruments or any other purpose.
.-= Gail @ Do Follow Lists´s last blog ..MEME: LinkLuv in Support of Small Businesses =-.
Gail – sounds great. I have your blog in my “regular read” bookmark folder, so I’ll be watching for your project.
Hello nice website maybe you can check out my acoustic guitars website kevin
James, first things first. The picture of guitars above is incredible. Did you click this? If so I would really like to see you write on photography topics as well
Secondly, I want to try your recommendation so badly, and unfortunately I live in the west and could not make it. Last week I was totally hunting for guitars which I wanted to present it to my friends kid on her birthday. Settled with something which is not satisfactory at all 
Since the birthday was fast approaching I didnt have much choice. I reached your blog searching about guitars and stuff and I am glad that i landed here. Gonna follow your posts regularly. Thanks heaps!
Warm Regards,
Alan Rosson
.-= Alan@Tulsa Homes´s last blog ..Origin of Valentine’s Day =-.
Hi, Alan, thanks for stopping by!
I’m looking at running a secondary piece where I do include more information on some of my shots in the near future…
I have been trying to get my hands on one of those guitars. I just don’t have a good store to go to.
.-= Guitars´s last blog ..How To Have Productive Rehearsals =-.
Guitars you have to love them what would the world be without music. I grew up in a family that played Bluegrass music as a child branched out to all forms of music my collection of music runs from classical to punk rock and every venue in between. So what is the best guitar? There is none – it depends on your musical taste Fender Gibson Yamaha Taylor… the list goes on just buy one learn to play and it will enrich your life
I love those guitars, what a great pic. The recycled cyprss one especially…
I definitely don’t have any criticism, great picture! Thanks for the tip about National Music, also, I live in Boston and I may have to check them out sometime.
I went there once and was like a kid in a candy store! It was definitely worth the trip, I kept coming back after that, of course. They have really great merchandise!
I love the guitar and that’s why I bought myself one but find the time to practice is hard, so I’ve got to just playing guitar tabs and forgetting all the basics.
Wow, that’s cool man
Its not very often that you hear good stories about customer service! My brother loves to play the guitar and is awesome
Guitar is not new to my dictionary. The problem was I don’t know how to play guitar and don’t understand the cords. I even don’t know how to choose a guitar.
Nice photo of guitars. The light effect towards the guitar is perfect.