“Romantic” is a word that depends a lot on your imagination. I remember reading books by Hunter S. Thompson, Flannery O’Connor, and Nick Tosches and thinking they were the most romantic things in the whole world. They were going on adventures, meeting people, doing crazy things, getting deep into their subject.
So there I was, photographing a one-of-a-kind Mosrite Ventures-style tenor guitar in the dust and debris of an old machine shop in Tulare County. There was also a stack of raw castings for the earliest Mosrite Vibramute vibratos, circa 1962, with the Guild logo still cast in the aluminum (it has long been known that the Vibramute was originally manufactured as a prototype for Guild Guitars, but the deal never went through. These are the first that have ever turned up with the Guild logo still in the casting).
These sort of discoveries are indeed romantic. I’m amazed at the stuff that is coming out of the woodwork as I do research and photography for the upcoming Mosrite book.
What is not so romantic is getting covered from head to foot in Tulare dust (Merle Haggard wrote a song about it, it’s a real thing), and photographing this stuff in a metal machine shop shed in 105-degree heat with no air conditioning. Sweat just dripping off my forehead, my shirt soaked with perspiration, hands dirty. All my equipment getting covered in dirt.
But you don’t really have to know about all that. Just think about how romantic it is that these things are being discovered, brought into the light, sixty-plus years later, and preserved for history in the book I’m writing. It really doesn’t get more romantic than that. Now, will somebody please pass me a cool, wet washcloth? Good lord, it’s hot…
