Eric Fairchild

Here is a very typical amp shot I used have to do. These shots were usually for ads in trade magazines and what I always liked about these type of shots is that the director of brand was old school and he used to sketch out exactly how he wanted it setup so it was super easy to setup because I didn’t have to figure out what was on his mind. If I can find one of his sketches I will added it with the corresponding image in the future. #fender #amp (at Fender) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSdd7i5L3L-/?utm_medium=tumblr

“Curves” These images are of formed and ready to be assembled sides for Gretsch custom shop guitars. #gretsch #customshop (at Fender Musical Instruments Corp.) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSSccifhJlm/?utm_medium=tumblr

Unlike yesterday’s post my favorite shoots were when I got to do lifestyle shots with the guitars. We would talk other employees into letting us photograph them playing usually on their lunch break. I always liked doing these shoots because they are real or as real as you can get because the people are actually guitar players and they usually loved the attention. I did plenty of shoots that we used models or friends of friends that didn’t play guitar so we, as I call it faked the shot. I was actually pretty good at faking the shot but it’s always better when you have someone who can actually play and I can just let them play with minimal direction. This is one of those shots. #gretsch #streamliner (at Fender) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSQKIo4luUV/?utm_medium=tumblr

OK so here is an example of the least favorite shots I used to have to do. When you look at the image it looks like a guitar with a reflection which anyone could do in photoshop right? Well these were never done in photoshop these are real images with real reflections on black plexiglass for this one. The setup for this has so much going on and I always dreaded getting everything setup for these. I used to get as many guitars shot as I could this way when i was setup because I hated doing the setup. I only had my self to blame for it because this came out of the designers asking for something different for the catalogs and they said what about reflections so they tried to do it in photoshop but that actually doesn’t look right when you do it so they asked if I could do it in camera or at least come up with something that was reproducible so thats what happened and I made my least favorite setup to have to shoot. Oh also I figured this would only be a one time deal but of course everyone liked the look so it stayed and evolved into me getting tired of setting these shots up. Anyways I will say the guitars did look good when they reflected on the plexiglass. #charvel #charvelguitars (at Fender) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSN760Fr32d/?utm_medium=tumblr

I miss the days when all we did was go to a location with some guitars and just come up with images. There was no script, no comps to follow just some hand written notes on which guitars go with which when we did group shots. Other than that we were free to just shoot what ever we saw looked cool. @forumydeer who is in this photo was always so helpful and we had a lot of fun on shoots like this one. #gretschguitars (at Florence, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSGJauDn3R9/?utm_medium=tumblr

Straight out of the archives, a one of a kind Fender Strat and amp I photographed. This guitar and amp were built as a promotion package when fender was trying to get its at the time audio system into the Porsche Panamera model. I doubt this guitar and amp will ever be seen again and this guitar and amp are to cool to keep the photos hidden for ever. Enjoy! #fender (at Fender Musical Instruments Corp.) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSC0s-BBZrk/?utm_medium=tumblr

Back in the day I used the photograph cars and this car is nothing special just a pre production Chrysler Neon meant for the Europe market. But what the real cool story of this shot is not the car but the situation I was in. So we shot this car in Chicago and this is the street that was in the movie The Untouchables. So the story is that we shot this car over a three day period all over the area and this was the last day of the shoot and my flight was out later then the film director I worked with so he told me to take the car to a couple of more locations to get more content and we had a cop with us for all the shots in the city so when we got to this location I asked the cop can we park this car in the middle of the street even while there are cars going past us at the time and he looked straight at me and said today son, your the mayor of Chicago and you can do what ever you want. So we set up this shot and while we did the shots it started to rain and that’s what really makes the shot in my opinion. But I will never forget what the cop said to me and every time I see this image that’s what I remember. This image was from the day I was the mayor of Chicago. (at Chicago Board of Trade Building) https://www.instagram.com/p/CSBS6V_Lgxh/?utm_medium=tumblr

This shot by far was the most nerve racking guitar shots I have done. All of these guitars are just leaning against the wall going up the stairs and at the time these were the golden samples meaning these are the only ones they had to show at that years NAMM so by no means can they drop and get scratched or worse and as @scottmshipley can attest to, their was a couple of close calls during this setup. But at the end of the day it worked and we got the shot with no casualties or scratches. #fender #guitar (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR70nFpnpdb/?utm_medium=tumblr

I have been going through my older work and organizing all of it and I have been coming across some really great images that I will be posting in the future. As I have been going through all my images I keep seeing images and saying damn I was good at this and was totally in my element when it came to photographing musicians. So this image of Billy Duffy of The Cult is definitely one of my favorite images and in my opinion this images just works it’s everything just came together for this shot. More cool shots to come. #billyduffy #thecult (at Los Angeles, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR5IwwLoiem/?utm_medium=tumblr

“Ripples in Time” It’s been almost two years since my last post and well I’ve decided to come back and start adding some images again. #imback (at Stetson Hills, Phoenix, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/CR0MruAI6ma/?utm_medium=tumblr

Architectural Detail shot for Airbnb listing. #architecturephotography https://www.instagram.com/p/B3zupx0n6Rt/?igshid=krvnqiovwvjc

Francisco Mesa, Guitarist for Nekromantix. @nekromantix_official #nekromantix #musicianphotography (at The Nile Theater) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3vgfCOncZD/?igshid=pts48xpl8cq8

“Trailer with a view” This was shot with my first digital camera which was a Nikon Coolpix 990 with a whopping 3mp sensor which was cutting edge for the time. #coolpix990 #nikon (at Gila Bend, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3s4RUJHMQB/?igshid=17yoq0h9ms21f

Only 31 more shopping days left! #halloween #october31 #insaneasylum (at The Ice House) https://www.instagram.com/p/B3FXRDGnrT0/?igshid=ldgxhmtt19t6

From a series I did of people painted silver. I shot this with a 4X5 camera and this is from a Polaroid negative. The black marks are from the negative getting scratched by accident which I thought was cool and made this a one of a kind image that can’t be duplicated. #photoart #art #happymistakes (at Phoenix, Arizona) https://www.instagram.com/p/B223XFjn3jX/?igshid=s3dpkvha5xlu

Custom Shop Charvel Guitar (at NAMM Show) https://www.instagram.com/p/B20oAm3nMLV/?igshid=1nzzn8cdc0eva

A Little Rock N Roll for your Monday #guitar #metalhead (at Fender) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2xRfiIH0b6/?igshid=1epeqmujjvrsd