Hammer dulcimer; strings and shadows

This was taken looking across my dulcimer. It's not the first time I've taken a picture of it, the previous one was on 13th February. I've been waiting to get this shadowy one for some time. Sometimes I get to play it with this amount of shadow on it - it's a bit of a nightmare trying to decide where to hit!
Thank you to Sally Kinsey (@musikinsey) for the inspiration for this shot.

[Miley]

Cool shot

[LYN ROBINSON]

very clever!

[Hamble]

Beautiful shot! The black and white is a good choice. So thats where you get your user name?

[Mhel]

Great composition,love the B&W!!

[Susan Bell]

I can really see the confusion for playing it in the sun! What about a shot of the strings still vibrating?

[Elzibell]

Cool shot! What an interesting instrument. :)

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

Thank you, everyone.
@hamble It is indeed.
@bigsusan55 I get the same trouble in a lot of indoor session venues. Downlighting is hopeless. Finding the optimum situation for playing is not easy. It's why I hug that corner in the bar at the Red Lion so closely! :)

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

@bigsusan55 Dunno quite how to tackle a vibrating string shot. Will work on that one & see if I can come up with something.

[Susan Bell]

Get someone else to hit it?

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

@bigsusan55 Had a go this afternoon. Not much luck. Lester tried plucking the string rather than hammering it. Results were unexciting.

[Nat]

What an unusual instrument. I’m fascinated by how the pairs of string alternate between going over the post then through the gap.
I see it has black and white bits at the top of the posts, does it work or is it played like a piano?

Oh, and a nicely composed shot :-)

[Alison Hewitt Bailey]

@natsnell Thank you :-)
If you imagine what goes inside a piano when you press a key, playing the dulcimer is a simplified version of that. The different coloured bits on the bridges are guides. The white ones show the start, 4th note and final note in each music key in which you can play it. Wikipedia's got quite a good article about them if you fancy finding out more.

[Sarah Horsfall]

Lovely shot - and the B&W works well :o)