The Kora is a Gambian musical instrument that sounds rather like a harp but is played rather like fingerstyle guitar.
It is the most recent instrument in my "Strings Attached" gallery at
www.charlesLwebster.com
Lit with one strobe on a boom overhead with a 20deg honeycomb grid and a 24" x 36" softbox off left for fill, down about 2 stops from the key.
Shot with Canon 30D w/ EF-S 60mm f/2.8 macro 1/200 @ f/11 ISO 100.
Yeah, cropped a little tight, I know. But my studio is really small and the instrument is quite large.
Hi Charles,
This is new for you in its complexity. I'm reluctant to walk away from it because to me it's been a challenge since you posted it and I have felt it's for me to accommodate not for you to change. I had been used to your streamlined minimalism in your guitar series. This is one new universe. Also cropping close makes it tough as the "boat" with the rigging wants to move forward to the left! The instrument is unusual to my eyes having gotten so accustomed to the polished shape of the violin, cello, base and guitar, (before electronics
). Here we almost have a community of features working together represented in different mother earth materials: the rich wood, strings, leather and cloth lanyard/strap.
The instrument, for sure is designed to have balance to use it and to be looked at. Here this has been cut so that we have exaggeration of verticals and there is very little relief in the lateral direction. Also direction is of any movement is right to left, contrary to progress in Western society. That's only an idiomatic preference but it's there, nevertheless. It's really tough to crop a real thing that someone has thought out and then make it whole again.
I am thinking that the issue is made more pressing only because I'm not seeing this on a large wall. The presentation is remarkably important for a composition as bold and awkward as this. It needs to be viewed in an accepting space which will then make up for balancing features which we are very good at adding. That's part of man's development: the ability to complete a puzzle.
So first I'd offer this as a smaller image say 400-500 pixels wide with a lot of free space above and below it. The other idea is to be very bold and say, O.K., it really wants to move right to left as a huge galleon. Well then, why not do exactly that.
So allow me to suggest an abutting black panel with added traveling space for the picture to breath and come to life:
Photo Charles Webster "Kora" black side panel ADK
I hope this merits your consideration, in any case, thanks for sharing your portrait of this unusual instrument.
Asher