Salt Spring Island photographer brings rare, vintage guitars to life in exhibition

Salt Spring Island photographer Gillean Proctor knew immediately what his newest project would be when he visited an acquaintance's house and was shown a rather unique collection, tucked away in a room in a basement behind a "secret door."

"He opened this door and I just walked in and was confronted and completely knocked out by this extraordinary collection of guitars that were lining the walls and all over the floor and in cabinets," Proctor told host Sheryl MacKay on North by Northwest.

"Everywhere you looked in this fairly large room was just full of very beautiful, rare, vintage guitars."

Guitars from late 1800s onwards

The guitars ranged from acoustic guitars made as early as the late 1800s, to models of Fender, Gretsch and Gibson electric guitars made in the 1950s.

"I compared it to discovering Tutankhamun's tomb or something like that, because it was so unexpected and such a delightful, beautiful thing to see," he said.

Over the course of a year Proctor took the guitars to his studio to photograph them and then blew the images up, some as large as five feetby four feet.

"When you photograph a guitar . it has to be big otherwise it doesn't have any impact, so the idea was to try and create some energy and excitement out of it."

Proctor's exhibition opens at Gallery 8 on Salt Spring Island on Friday, May 20 and runs until June 3.

Capturing nostalgia, energy of Sixties' guitars

Proctor said he wanted his photographs to bring out the energy of these instruments, many of which had previously been used atrock concerts and reminded him of his youth in London in the Sixties.

"There was a quietness in the room that was so still, and yet I'm surrounded by this energy that just seemed to want to be woken up, so that's what inspired me to photograph these guitars and try to recreate some of the energy that was there.

"I could almost hear the music when I was in the room."

Proctor said one of the guitars he photographed is an acoustic from 1898, which he described as "an absolutely exquisite, very, very rare guitar in almost perfect condition."

There was a gold-plated, white enameled Gretsch White Falcon guitar the axe of choice for Elvis Presley which Proctor said was regarded as "the most beautiful guitar in the world" when it came out in the early 1960s.

And there was also a Martin D-45 acoustic guitar, which he said was the "simplest image" to capture because the guitar had the "most beautiful soft, warm, honey coloured wood."

Proctor said that just photographing a guitar is not necessarily that interesting, so to make the image really stand out he experimented with lighting, angles and textures to give it a sense of nostalgia.

"I was imagining all the craftsmen that made these fabulous guitars, and also of course the musicians who were playing them."

With files from CBC's North by Northwest

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