This summer I had a great opportunity to photograph banjos built by my friend Lindsey Liden.
I've known Lindsey for a couple years now. By chance he came in as a last minute sub on a dovetail joinery class I took when the teacher got sick. Lindsey was such a good teacher. As per usual I had come in with a lot of ambition to build a cabinet for a tube amp I had just built. Lindsey, a former touring musician himself, had a lot of great ideas and suggestions. And we hit it off.
Lindsey was an assistant instructor on a guitar building class I took. And that instrument is still the gold standard on which I compare everything else I build.
At the tail end of the pandemic it had been awhile since I had taken a woodworking class. So I reached out and asked if he'd ever do a banjo building workshop out of his shop. It just happened that the same day he had another person reach out with the same question. So he put together his first workshop for myself and two others. It was a week spent in the mountains building banjos and playing music. It was awesome. I've done 2 more workshops with Lindsey.
This summer Lindsey was finishing a batch of banjos before heading to Clifftop (Appalachian String Band Music Festival) and wanted to get them photographed. I got to help with final assembly and then took them into a makeshift studio to photograph them. And that's what you see here.
Lindsey is a builder with an awesome aesthetic. Beautiful wood choices. Detailed metal scoops. Crazy colors and cosmetic distressing of the pots. Relic'd hardware. And musically they sound amazing. Lindsey has an Indiana Jones style journal filled with scribbles about joint angles and headstock designs; clues looking for that holy grail of sound.
Creating these photographs it's important to honor all the attention to details that he puts in as a builder. And to showcase what makes these instruments unique. And I like to think I did that.
If you're interested in banjos or banjo building workshops, check out his website at https://www.mulheronbanjos.com/, or share it with your friends.
