This article describes the development and some of the features of the new Exceptional Guitars web site.

A Long Time Coming...
Well, friends...its taken much, much longer to get my new web site up and running than I ever imagined...but here it is in "beta" form. We will be testing, adjusting, correcting and updating it with new content over the next several months...so come back often and see what's new. In the meanwhile, please send me an e-mail (use Contact feature) and let me know what you think of the new site or report any problems you may have encountered in moving around the site.

Web Site Development

Click logo to visit Global Focus' Web site.

Guitar Photos
I also underestimated the difficulty and time involved in photographing guitars! Finding the right digital camera, lenses, settings, lighting and backgrounds has been challenging. I have worked out many of these details, but the physical task of photographing, and in many cases rephotographing, over a hundred guitars is daunting. This involves cataloging, naming, cropping, resizing, renaming, resaving and uploading of all of the images and proper coordination with each the individual guitar descriptions. This takes lots of time and requires much patience and focus. Initially, the new web site will contain many resized versions of my original "snapshot" photos, with detail shots added where available. Some of these older photos may look distorted due to resizing to fit the new photo frames. Over time, I will be replacing the snapshots with better quality flash photos which look pretty good, but are often plagued with flash reflections. Also the flash tends to exagerate otherwise barely noticeable light surface imperfections and even dust particles. Eventually, I will be able to display professional quality, non-flash images (like those at the top of the homepage), typically showing 8-16 views of each guitar. I just bought a set of professional quality studio lights for digital photography, so I will start experimenting with those lights soon. If you are particularly interested in a guitar, and the photos posted on the web site are not great, please contact us by e-mail and request additional pictures. We will do our best to take some better shots and e-mail them to you as soon as possible.

News Articles and Features
One of the aspects of the new Exceptional Guitars web site I am most excited about is the section for News and Features. On these pages will appear appear articles on topics of particular interest to guitar fanatics, players, collectors, builders and luthiers. I already have material for two or three interviews with prominent guitar builders and hope to make this a regular feature of the site. I also plan on publishing the results of some hands-on non-scientific testing of various pickup systems for acoustic guitars which should be of considerable interest to those of you who are looking for the right pickup to accurately amplify your fantastic sounding acoustic guitars.

The New EG Logo - "Yin-Yang Guitars"
One of the most distinctive features of the new Exceptional Guitars web site is the new EG Logo design which features a unique and compelling central "Yin-Yang Guitar" image. This graphic was created with the skillful assitance of Tom Burton of Global Focus Digital Media and is based on a photograph of a Taylor 912 acoustic guitar. The original image was duplicated and inverted in the form of a mirror image, then colorized, overlapped, and edited in Adobe Photoshop to give the impression that the two guitars were interlaced and merged into the familiar Yin-Yang formation. It took us a long time to get the images and coloring just right and we are very pleased with the result. Send us an e-mail (use the Contact Us button) to tell us what you think of the new EG Logo.

"All Guitars Are Not Created Equal..."
This "catch-phrase" really embodies the philosphy of Exceptional Guitars. It acknowledges the fact that guitarmaking is both an art and a science. The finished qualities of any given guitar depend on the design, the natural and man-made materials used in its construction and the experience, skill and approach of the maker(s). One would expect that computer-designed, mass-producted guitars would tend to sound similar from "unit to unit", and be almost interchangeable in terms of visual appearance, playability and sound qualities. I think this generally holds true, but even in this highly regulated and mechanized enviroment, there are always going to be variations in the appearance and tonal qualities of the wood and other natural materials used to build otherwise identically constructed guitars.

When you consider entirely hand-made, or primarily hand-made guitars, the differences in the qualities of the finished guitars still depends on the qualities of the natural materials used, but these qualities are greatly compounded by the experience, skill and approach of the individual builder(s) whose hands create the instrument. Truly, every guitar is a unique human and natural creation. So, it is my belief that all guitars inherently possess differing qualities...and some are clearly more skillfully designed and built, more beautifully finished or adorned, and can produce more pleasing tones and more dramatic expression than others which are missing these qualities.

In short, these higher quality, more desireable instruments have been the focus of attention on my personal Guitar Quest and are the mainstay and raison d'etre (justification for existing) of the Exceptional Guitar web site. So please come on in, take a look around and see if anything we have here interests you. If you have any questions at all about the instruments featured for sale, please send us an e-mail (use the Contact Us button) or give us a call at (541) 741-6878, and we will do our best to match you up with your dream guitar. One thing is for sure...we've got a lot of exceptional guitars here... and we are always looking for more (check out the Guitars Wanted button).