With photo projects limited to the house and garden I’ve taken the opportunity to dust off the flashguns and do some studio photography. I say studio, it’s actually just my home office, although as I’m a designer I can technically call it a studio (not in the photography sense), but that sounds a bit pretentious to me, so we’ll stick with office.
As you can see, my office has one black wall, this wasn’t done for photography purposes, I watched a film where this guy had a chalk wall in his apartment and thought it looked cool. But after buying some chalk I never had it in me to mess it up!
Double bass
Obviously my choice of things to shoot is limited but I’ve plenty of possessions that make for interesting subject matter … to me at least.
I started playing double bass at around age 15, playing in rockabilly and trash bands. I was never really any good, but that’s never stopped me. Later in life I played in a bluegrass band, that was fun and pretty easy to play. I really wish I could play jazz bass, niiiiiice (Fast Show reference there) and if this lockdown carries on much longer maybe I’ll get chance to learn!
Nowadays my bass sits in the corner of the room and is little more than a fancy ornament, shame really. Being photographed is the most action it’s seen in years!
Set up
As space is limited I couldn’t really include the entire bass; this didn’t really bother me as I thought closer detailed shots would be more interesting. I wanted a moody look to the images. I used a single flashgun with a snoot. This enabled me to direct a narrow beam of light on to the bass. I wanted to create an image as if the bass was on stage and being lit by a single spot light. Taken with a Nikon 24-70mm lens.
I’m pleased with the results, but might trying something a little smaller for my next shoot…
