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  #1  
Old 04-16-2008, 01:28 AM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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Current Photo Project

I shot this quillon dagger by itself for my friend Hanford Miller a couple of weeks ago. Now he's finished the scabbard so it's time to shoot them together. I don't have a real feel yet for what to do with the package so I messed around and came up with this. I imagine I'll end up settling on a composite image with a much simpler background. I get a whole week to have some fun shooting it. Not the most elegant quillon dagger and not the easiest damascus to shoot - so there are some challenges. But I have to hand it to Hanford. When you handle one of his historically oriented blades like this one, by god you start to feel like you want to go out and wreak some havock with it. He's got a knack for packing a lot of 'authenticity' into his blades.


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Old 04-16-2008, 07:45 AM
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That's a really good shot. The knife is lifting off the background to the point where I want to grab it. I like the contrast of the green. It makes all the other elements stand out.

I like it.

Coop


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Old 04-16-2008, 03:00 PM
JossDelage JossDelage is offline
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I like the compo and the background. The constructive feedback that comes to me is:

1 - There are hot spots on the blade.
2 - There's some blurring in the last 1/3 of the blade. Not sure if that's due to the feathering in PS or some DOF issue.

This is a very nice piece. I wonder if the scabbard wouldn't deserve to be more prominently featured.


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Old 04-16-2008, 04:46 PM
mckenna mckenna is offline
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Strong sense of realism. Doesn't have the "Doctored Effect". Nice.
Greg
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Old 04-17-2008, 02:17 AM
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Buddy Thomason Buddy Thomason is offline
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Thanks for the feedback everybody. Although it may sound like an excuse, this one is challenging. As has been said before, it's a lot easier to make a great photograph of a 'supermodel' than 'the girl next door.'

For example, in this case the contrast throughout the damascus is uneven. Makes for a tough lighting problem AND it's not very fixable in post-processing. Using a polarizer didn't make much of a difference either.

Then the different reflective properties of gobs of highly figured silver and brass create issues.

The big round convex edge bevels tend to further obscure the pattern in the steel and create a lot of light fall-off, especially toward the tip.

This is the kind of blade that would make for a great 'pass-around' photo project like we did on this forum a couple of years ago, just to see how different photographers might approach the same set of challenges. That was a great learning experience but it was a lot of work signing people up, sending the knife from person to person, putting all the entries into a thread and critiquing all of them. Remember that, Coop? You did most of the work on that project and it's no surprise you haven't volunteered to spearhead one of those pass-around projects again!

OK, enough explaining that just sounds like excuses. Here's a composite using the same basic color and background scheme:



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Last edited by Buddy Thomason; 04-22-2008 at 10:58 AM.
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Old 04-17-2008, 11:40 AM
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And here is a crop that hopefully illustrates some of what I'm describing:


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Old 04-17-2008, 12:28 PM
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I understand the problems this knife challenges, and yet you did a fine job.

Your selection of insets really shows the best areas. The sheath button, the 'lace' at the top of the throat, and the detail of the guard filing was lost in the core photo.

Nice.

Coop


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Old 04-17-2008, 02:21 PM
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Terrill Hoffman Terrill Hoffman is offline
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Buddy, don't you ever pick an easy project?
I'm glad it is you and not me having to do that combination. But I know you! You won't stop till it is perfect!


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Old 04-22-2008, 11:13 PM
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OK, I think I finally got it to where I can live with it. Note the improvement in the upper half of the blade in the center shot.



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