Oklahoma Vintage Guitar Blog

I have had an interesting experience this week with some of my vintage guitars that I have never had before.  I take over 10,000 pictures of guitars every year to post them on the internet and we try to do the best we can to accurately show all sides and vantage points to our customers so they will know what they are getting.  We have a neighbor a few stores up Main Street from us which is Larry Nance Photography Studio.  I have really admired some of his portraits because not only did they have interesting humans in them, but some of them have Harley bikes and old classic cars in them.  He is a Route 66 Highway buff because our stores are on the old Mother Road.  I have a 1964 ½ Mustang convertible that I have had since I was a kid and my Harley Roadking is actually on display here in the guitar store and I ride it every time the weather gets about 70 degrees.    Well, Larry came in this week and asked if we wanted to collaborate on some artistic photos of some of the really cool old stuff so we could make them available to our customers if they wanted them.  I thought it was a great idea and we set a time and I took a couple of my most valued possessions and went up to his loft studio a few doors up the street.  His building is five years older than ours, which makes it about 106 now and it has some really nice architecture.  I took my 1951 Fender NoCaster and a 1950 Fender Tweed Deluxe Amp.  He did some really cool shots of these with an old antique barn type door he has in his studio.  He had a tweed piece of luggage made by the same people who made the tweed for the amp and he incorporated it really nicely into the picture. 

I also took one of my old 1957, 00018 Martins.  He really did some nice shots of it with different plant arrangements and a horse saddle and even an American Flag.  He actually has an antique phone booth in his studio and did one shot of the suitcase and the guitar in the phone booth which made it look like some guy in 1959 had stopped at the bus station to call his girlfriend one more time before he left on the road.  Don’t get me wrong, I know how to take pictures of guitars and probably very few people alive have snapped more good photographs of quality guitars than I have over the last 40 years.  However, Larry Nance is an ARTIST.  The guy is good!  I couldn’t believe the emotion and the feeling he captured with the lighting and angles he used.  My photography makes people want to buy the guitar, his photography makes people want to buy pictures. 

It made me feel about my pictures kind of like when listening to someone who plays a good ballad and plays all the right chords and sings all the right notes while they are reading it out of a songbook, and then his pictures were like listening to someone with a broken heart sing that same ballad through their pain and really giving their soul to the song.   You know what I mean! The music art is best when the soul is involved.  I saw some pictures of my guitars today that really brought out the soul of the instrument.  When I look at my pictures of guitars I think, wow, what a nice flame maple top, or gee, that is a sweet looking inlay.  When I look at Larry’s pictures of my guitars I think, “what if it could talk,” or “what was the last song it played?” or  “does it miss it’s last owner.”  I know they don’t miss us, but they sure do hear more about us from our heart than almost anyone in our lives. 

Anyway, this was a really cool experience.  He is going to produce some really cool art from those two guitars and if it goes well we will do some of the other old pieces I have.

Have a great weekend and put some soul into that song.

Bro Bobby