My buddy Rob Maupin plays guitar. Really well. I'm working on a personal project this year and needed to make some images of a musician, so I invited Rob down to the studio last week and we made some pictures.

We were aiming for something moody, evocative, and rough--a little "unfinished around the edges." The lighting was sparse and the background dark for this reason. For the first and third images, we used a single Paul Buff Einstein strobe with a 30 degree grid. This focused the light and give it a hard edge. The middle photo with the electric guitar was lit with an Einstein in a 60" Photek SoftLighter II umbrella. I also processed the images with some grain and the focus a little loose--again, to give them some texture and mood.

I set the Panasonic GH3 aside for this session and used the Olympus OM-D E-M5 camera instead. Both the Olympus 45mm and Panasonic 20mm lenses were pressed into service as well (the 20mm was used for the portrait with the Telecaster below).

My thanks to Rob for letting me make his pictures. He's started to put his music up on SoundCloud--click over to Rob's site to hear his first tracks.

If you're in central Illinois (Bloomington/Normal, Springfield, Peoria, Decatur, Champaign/Urbana) and need some album art, marketing images, or headshots for a project, please let me know.

Rob Maupin, guitarist portrait with Telecaster :: Michael Gowin Photography, Lincoln, IL

Rob Maupin, musician portrait with Taylor acoustic guitar :: Michael Gowin Photography, Lincoln, IL