Guitars Reimagined

Back on April 19, I posted Coffee and Guitars with this ↓ image as the lead photo.

Blogging, for me, is largely about keeping up with what is going on in this life of mine, so I try to develop a daily photo to a presentable level and then post it, probably on the next day. So, I don't always take the time to consider it deeply. In this case ↑ it took me a little nudging to get it to this point, and I was happy enough with it at the time.

However, in the fullness of time, when I came across the image again, I wasn't all that happy with it. For one thing the lines are a little wonky. Look at the dark line of bricks around top part of the guitars, and you'll see that it isn't level. I also felt that the photo was a little dull and needed a little more contrast and saturation. I also said in that post that if I were return to the cafe, I'd like to ask the owners if I could, temporarily, remove the plant. Mary commented that perhaps I could do this in Photoshop. Well, duh! Why didn't I think of that? I do have and use Photoshop after all.

So, I set about to do all of those things, and this is the result, which I think is a stronger image. 

It's a little less true to the reality that I saw with my eyes, especially the bright orange of the third guitar, but the farther you get away from what you actually saw, I think the more you just care about the image itself. By the way, when I write 'you' of course I really mean I.

And as I did before in the original post, I created a mono version, which, as you know, I often do.

Happy with both new iterations, I posted them to my FB group. But then new thoughts arose from the murkiness of my gray matter.

I realized that three elements represent a better compositional number than four. There's just something about an odd number in an image. Since I was never pleased with the left guitar, which was greatly affected by the strong window light, I decided that it should become the casualty. It is also a very different type of guitar  (a dobro) than the others.

As I was considering that, I decided that the piano bugged me too. It's only partly present, and it is so close to the guitars that I think it threw the balance of the photo off.

So this ↓ is what I did. It's a simple image with just the three guitars, the wall, and no distractions. It isn't perfect, but I think it's good enough that I might even consider printing it.

Whether I print it or not, as far as processing goes, I think I can let it rest now.

Unless I go back to the cafe and try again from scratch.