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Matinee: 'All Strings Attached'
23 August 2025
Saturday matinees long ago let us escape from the ordinary world to the island of the Swiss Family Robinson or the mutinous decks of the Bounty. Why not, we thought, escape the usual fare here with Saturday matinees of our favorite photography films?
So we're pleased to present the 618th in our series of Saturday matinees today: All Strings Attached: The Eisner Guitar Collection.
This 4:26 video represents "a sampling of the massive rare guitar collection of William Eisner" featured at the recent National Guitar Fest, explains Jay Filter, who photographed it.
The collection includes such finds as the 1933 Slingerland Cathedranola, 1938 Wilkanowski/D’Angelico, 1964 Danelectro Pro 1, 1964 Echo, Vega Stereo 2000 and the Jens Ritter Black Dragon.
Eisner had a small collection of guitars he owned when in 2008 he decided to "hedge some of his bets and invest in guitars instead of stock." He started with Les Paul designs before adding a 1954 pre-production Fender Stratocaster, as well as guitars signed by Dave Grohl, Jimmy Page and Phil X.
Filter is a former ad agency creative director and agency owner who took up photography in 2012. He took 10 months to complete his 300-page The History, Art & Imagery of the Pfister Hotel, which won him the International Book Awards Competition for Best Photography and honors from the National Indie Excellence Book Awards.
The video splices still of the guitars with portraits of people playing them.
But those stills are a four-minute seminar on using selective focus to highlight the beauty and workmanship that went into making those instruments. It's all done with nothing more than shallow depth of field but it feels like magic.