Photographing knives

Is this subject too specialised to be useful as a tutorial subject?

  • Yes

    Votes: 9 20.0%

  • No

    Votes: 36 80.0%
  • Total voters
    45
Garry Edwards

Garry Edwards

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Garry Edwards
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So, I've been volunteered to photograph a lot of different knives, which I'll be doing next week...
I've had a look at them, there's a lot of variety, mainly lock knives and hunting knives, some military type sheath knives, some are black, most are very shiny, even one or two Damascus steel ones, which are very satisfying but which have their own demands, It's a challenging subject, especially the way I do it, which is (whenever possible) To light the handle and blade separately and get it right in the same shot rather than to photograph each separately and then rely on my friend PS.

So, my question is:
Will this be a useful tutorial subject? If so then I'll get a video made.
But, if it's too specialised, on the basis that nearly everyone who needs to do it already knows how to, then I won't add to my workload by doing a tutorial that nobody is going to want to read and watch...
 
Garry Edwards said:
So, I've been volunteered to photograph a lot of different knives, which I'll be doing next week...
I've had a look at them, there's a lot of variety, mainly lock knives and hunting knives, some military type sheath knives, some are black, most are very shiny, even one or two Damascus steel ones, which are very satisfying but which have their own demands, It's a challenging subject, especially the way I do it, which is (whenever possible) To light the handle and blade separately and get it right in the same shot rather than to photograph each separately and then rely on my friend PS.

So, my question is:
Will this be a useful tutorial subject? If so then I'll get a video made.
But, if it's too specialised, on the basis that nearly everyone who needs to do it already knows how to, then I won't add to my workload by doing a tutorial that nobody is going to want to read and watch...
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The thought processes and principles of controlling light - and lighting different regions separately - is always of interest, regardless of subject matter.
 
I'll add in that even if its not something immediately obviously useful to me, I still enjoy looking at the tutorials. Hopefully I sometimes take away an element that might be just the answer to a problem that comes up later.
 
Hardly too specialised ....Photographing texture shapes and highly reflective surfaces, always presents a challenge.
Most will not have a clue and just put the lot in a tent.
some one somewhere will learn something useful.
 
I am more than willing to learn from your experience, Garry:clap:
 
Ditto all the above - good lighting dealing with a difficult subject - seems like a perfect subject to me.
 
Sorry, Garry, rather poorly worded. The poll title and question is:

Is this subject too specialised to be useful as a tutorial subject?
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but the question you post in the post is

Will this be a useful tutorial subject?
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Can't help wondering how many people voted Yes thinking they were answering that they WOULD like to see a tutorial!

If you have the time and inclination, I'd like to see a tutorial.
 
Nod said:
Sorry, Garry, rather poorly worded. The poll title and question is:



but the question you post in the post is



Can't help wondering how many people voted Yes thinking they were answering that they WOULD like to see a tutorial!

If you have the time and inclination, I'd like to see a tutorial.
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My thoughts were that the subject may be too specialised to interest most people, so that was in my mind when I set the poll question - but I accept your point, some people may have seen what they expected to see rather than what was actually there - that's human nature.

Not to worry, it does seem to be of interest, and whether it interests 68% or 32% (currently) doesn't matter, let's just do it and see whether it flies like a kite or sinks like a stone:)
Obviously there is cost involved, in terms of staff time, so Lencarta will lose money on it if not enough people read/watch it. If it's popular then it's paid for in reputational terms, website traffic, SEO and so on, and none of our direct competitors seem to be able to produce them - and anyway, I like doing them and hope that these tutorials are helpful to the current generation of photographers, who haven't had the training opportortunities that I've had.

It will take a while to edit etc but I'll get the actual studio shooting done in the next few days. There will also be outdoor shots for the client, because these are knives for outdoors people. Nothing is simple in life and we're going to have to do the outdoor shots either on my own land or similar, simply because the law doesn't allow these knives to be taken to public places - most have blades that are too long for that, and anyway they are all either fixed blade or locking knives.
 
The subject surely has techniques in common with other shiny metal objects, perhaps you could extend it to include other stuff to make the video more interesting to a wider audience?
 
Steep said:
The subject surely has techniques in common with other shiny metal objects, perhaps you could extend it to include other stuff to make the video more interesting to a wider audience?
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It sort of does, but there are features that are almost unique to knives.
They typically have a very shiny blade, sometimes with a serrated edge that throws light around in different directions, sometimes not.
Some of the blades either aren't shiny at all, or just have a shiny metal bit showing where it's sharpened down to the edge, sometimes they're Damascus steel, with intricate patterns.
Sometimes with a blood groove, sometimes not
Usually with the maker's name engraved on them, which can be a challenge.
Then there is often the locking mechanism, which needs to be shown.
And then there's the quillon, which reflects light in various ways.
And there's the handle and bolster, which come in various shapes with varying radius, and even more importantly are made of different types of material, some smooth and shiny, some rough and textured

And the lighting has to suit all of these variables. In other words, I think that although the general principles involved in lighting shiny subjects do apply to knives too, I think that this is probably a subject in its own right.
 
Sounds fascinating. Really looking forward to the tutorial.

Its a shame more companies do not do these more unusual shoots - so bored of endless headshots of women, over and over. I think it is good publicity for Lencarta. I have purchased from Lencarta due to the positive presence on this forum - Garry comes over as genuine customer care and support, not as just 'going through the motion' shallow advertising. I wish more companies would follow this example and put up more varied and challenging stuff.
 
Garry Edwards said:
My thoughts were that the subject may be too specialised to interest most people, so that was in my mind when I set the poll question - but I accept your point, some people may have seen what they expected to see rather than what was actually there - that's human nature.

Not to worry, it does seem to be of interest, and whether it interests 68% or 32% (currently) doesn't matter, let's just do it and see whether it flies like a kite or sinks like a stone:)
Obviously there is cost involved, in terms of staff time, so Lencarta will lose money on it if not enough people read/watch it. If it's popular then it's paid for in reputational terms, website traffic, SEO and so on, and none of our direct competitors seem to be able to produce them - and anyway, I like doing them and hope that these tutorials are helpful to the current generation of photographers, who haven't had the training opportortunities that I've had.

It will take a while to edit etc but I'll get the actual studio shooting done in the next few days. There will also be outdoor shots for the client, because these are knives for outdoors people. Nothing is simple in life and we're going to have to do the outdoor shots either on my own land or similar, simply because the law doesn't allow these knives to be taken to public places - most have blades that are too long for that, and anyway they are all either fixed blade or locking knives.
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It might be less popular and less useful from an SEO point of view but I prefer written articles & BTS shots to videos. ( I know Lencarta usually do both [emoji106])
 
MidnightUK said:
Sounds fascinating. Really looking forward to the tutorial.

Its a shame more companies do not do these more unusual shoots - so bored of endless headshots of women, over and over. I think it is good publicity for Lencarta. I have purchased from Lencarta due to the positive presence on this forum - Garry comes over as genuine customer care and support, not as just 'going through the motion' shallow advertising. I wish more companies would follow this example and put up more varied and challenging stuff.
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Thanks for that.
The typical demographic for a studio photographer is a male aged 45-55, which I'm sure is why so many firms just do these women shots. I've done them myself, but prefer not to for a couple of reasons
1. As you say, it's pretty boring
2. It costs money for the model
3. The slightest change of pose by the model changes the lighting effect, so unless very bland lighting is used (and I don't do bland) the results are only "good" if the model's pose and lighting happen to coincide for a certain shot. In the real world, with fashion photography we "machine gun" and get hundreds of shot in the hope of getting a few keepers.
4. If the model doesn't happen to be sexually attractive to the viewer, it's perceived to be a bad photo, i.e the judgement is based on the model, not on the lighting.

Because of these reasons I personally prefer to use something as attractive as a tin of baked beans for tutorial shots, if the shots don't work then that's my fault and not the fault of the subject.

When I was first approached by Lencarta, all those years ago, my role was to provide them with technical support and guidance, so that they could improve their products. Since then I've taken on more roles, sort of accidentally, and I'm now very much involved in providing technical support to customers (from someone who wants to buy their first studio flash to large corporate customers, including education and the military) but my own attitude has never changed, I don't do sales, I just try to ask the right questions and provide the best answers. Lencarta gives me free reign, and when I've gone my successor, who has the same attitude, will continue what I've started.
I don't want to be negative about competitors, but it's pretty obvious to me that most simply can't do what we do, because their emphasis is on sales and whether they know it or not, they don't actually have photographers :)

juggler said:
It might be less popular and less useful from an SEO point of view but I prefer written articles & BTS shots to videos. ( I know Lencarta usually do both [emoji106])
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I completely agree. I much prefer the written word, so do both that and video. Videos can't provide the same depth of info, unless they're far too long for most people to watch. I'm pretty bad at doing the BTS shots, simply because I get engrossed in what I'm doing and forget all about them, but I do try to do them.

Effectively, I'm no longer a photographer. I've got to the age where I need to do less (or nothing at all) and when Lencarta opened up the warehouse in Bradford just over 3 years ago I closed my own studio and set one up there, but I have almost totally stopped doing any commercial work now, I don't want the work and I don't need the money. Pretty much all that I now do is product shots for Lencarta, so this knives shoot is a bit of a departure. The client here is a friend (he still pays top whack) who is part of a large and disparate group of outdoors people - off roaders, hill climbers, archers, knife throwers, shooters, campers, fishers, kyackers etc, nearly all to raise money for charities. I got much more involved with them early this year when they invited me to make up the numbers for their team in a very large clay pigeon charity shoot. Many of these people are either ex military or current reservists, most are pretty special people. 3 of them have come to work for us. Some of the group have decided to run a business selling knives for outdoors people, hence this shoot.

One thing that's very important to me is understanding the subject. I'm not an expert on knives (by any means) but I do use them, and this is almost essential if I'm to show the qualities in my studio shots. But I'm not expert enough and so will have someone who knows far more than I do to advise on the strengths etc when I actually do the shoot. Not all photographers share my approach, and I'm not critical of those who don't care whether or not the client is present at a commercial shoot, or who won't allow the client to be present, but I insist that the client is there, to advise me.

We did another video tutorial some time ago, on photographing horses. That one is all shot but on the back burner due to pressure of other work (new website development, business expansion etc) but should be ready soon-ish. Again, I know a bit about horses, and wouldn't have taken the shoot on otherwise, because the photographer has to understand the angles at which a horse looks good, and when the bloody thing is cantering around he also needs to know where it's safe to stand or lay:) As it happens, I used to train working sheepdogs from horseback, my better half runs a horse rescue charity and our daughter is doing a degree in horse behaviour and training - they both tell me that I'm totally useless with horses (and compared to them I am) but if I didn't have the subject knowledge that I do have then I wouldn't have taken on the horse shoot either, at least not without a trainer present to advise.
 
Garry Edwards said:
One thing that's very important to me is understanding the subject. I'm not an expert on knives (by any means) but I do use them, and this is almost essential if I'm to show the qualities in my studio shots
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This is one of the several reasons I am interested in this tutorial. I want to see what you have to become aware of in order to do a good job.

If you do move on from Lencarta you will be very missed -I hope you don't do that for ages and that you remain on the forum if you go. Its really great your partner and daughter do horse rescue work - Its nice when people manage to counteract how disappointing or horrid other humans can be.

I have realised, as I gradually learn more and more, that many of the people who teach are just winging it with fingers crossed and don't really have much idea of what they are doing at all. I attended a training session a few years back where the trainer actually told the group he had been commissioned to write a specialist book on an aspect of photography. He said the then, after signing the contract, had to go out and learn how to do it totally from scratch as it was an area of photographer he had never been involved in. I thought of all the people who would have been doing that sort of work on a daily basis and instead someone without a clue got a book contract. Shocking. The book has been in-print for several years now. It made me re-evaluate a lot of what is presented as good training or training material. Once you go down that route of listening carefully you soon start to realise how little many trainers know, as they contradict themselves or evade answering questions they probably should know the answer too. I have got quite cynical now.
 
I would love to see more product tutorials in general. Finding info on portraiture is comparatively easy. On shooting objects to high standard, not so much.

If anyone can recommend other good product photography tutorials I would be interested.
 
MidnightUK said:
This is one of the several reasons I am interested in this tutorial. I want to see what you have to become aware of in order to do a good job.

If you do move on from Lencarta you will be very missed -I hope you don't do that for ages and that you remain on the forum if you go. Its really great your partner and daughter do horse rescue work - Its nice when people manage to counteract how disappointing or horrid other humans can be.

I have realised, as I gradually learn more and more, that many of the people who teach are just winging it with fingers crossed and don't really have much idea of what they are doing at all. I attended a training session a few years back where the trainer actually told the group he had been commissioned to write a specialist book on an aspect of photography. He said the then, after signing the contract, had to go out and learn how to do it totally from scratch as it was an area of photographer he had never been involved in. I thought of all the people who would have been doing that sort of work on a daily basis and instead someone without a clue got a book contract. Shocking. The book has been in-print for several years now. It made me re-evaluate a lot of what is presented as good training or training material. Once you go down that route of listening carefully you soon start to realise how little many trainers know, as they contradict themselves or evade answering questions they probably should know the answer too. I have got quite cynical now.
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I will be "moving on" from Lencarta, in the sense that I want to retire. I'm now 71. Photography has been good to me but I don't want to work until I drop. I've already cut down to 4 days a week. I will however stay on this forum when I retire.

The problem (as I see it) with teaching photography is that it isn't a real science, it's just a mixture of art and b******t with a little bit of science added into the mix, therefore nobody can prove themselves to be expert and the door is wide open for lost sheep to masquerade as sheepdogs and teach others what they can't do themselves. Quite a few years ago I was commissioned to produce a very comprehensive training course, the passing of which would result in a nationally-recognised qualification. About halfway through this very lucrative, big job I became seriously ill and had to resign the commission. My role was then taken over by someone who, on paper, owned a successful commercial studio, but in reality the studio didn't even exist. What he actually owned was a training photography business, he was the self-appointed expert and chief instructor:) That's the way this industry has gone.

A few years ago, Lencarta ran two monthly lighting workshops each month, at a subsidised cost. I ran the Northern one and Jonathan Ryan ran the southern one. I never took a blind bit of notice who the attendees were, I treated everyone exactly the same and made no assumptions about them, based on what they said, and with good reason because many were running photography businesses but knew no more than the people who said that they knew nothing about studio work. But Jonathan did look into people's history and sometimes looked at their websites, and I remember him telling me about one guy whose website started offering advanced portraiture courses at £700, as soon as he had booked on Jonathan's 1 day portraiture course costing £60. And I remember that one of the people who attended one of my own training workshops then started offering their own, near identical course, even though he was an absolute beginner.

Many of the so called tutorials and the YouTube videos are misleading, I know this because I know that the lighting that they claim to have used is incapable of producing the results that they show - those results owe much more to post processing than to their lighting - you're right to be cynical:(
 
Garry Edwards said:
I will be "moving on" from Lencarta, in the sense that I want to retire. I'm now 71.
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Crikey, you certainly look a lot younger on the videos. I am glad you intend to frequent the forum.

Garry Edwards said:
Many of the so called tutorials and the YouTube videos are misleading, I know this because I know that the lighting that they claim to have used is incapable of producing the results that they show - those results owe much more to post processing than to their lighting - you're right to be cynical:(
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Indeed. I notice very few trainers let you see any unretouched images. Even the ones seemingly shot straight into Lightroom seem to have presets automatically placed on them - sometimes you see the original flicker into LR and then its gone, replaced by a saturated and otherwise adjusted image. Its ok to see what an adjusted images can end up being but people need to see the straight out of camera shots to tell if they are on the right track or not. A while back I saw a video with a fairly honest photographer who said he was now getting retouchers to do all of his post processing and no longer did any himself. The finished article bore almost no resemblance other than broadly, to the original image. To be honest, it had pretty much in my view, stopped being the photographers work and become almost entirely the retouchers art. It was only a headshot. It left me wondering though how many of the photographers training just do not mention the intervention not only by preset etc, but by third parties having a go at the image but not being acknowledged.

As an aside Garry, do you ever come across Sean Ponting in your shooting world? I have not seen him since i was a child, but he is a cousin and we used to play together. I have been told he has shot clays for England.
 
MidnightUK said:
As an aside Garry, do you ever come across Sean Ponting in your shooting world? I have not seen him since i was a child, but he is a cousin and we used to play together. I have been told he has shot clays for England.
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He's in the effluent south and shoots way better than me, so we don't mix in the same circles:)
 
Would love to see a tutorial on this - one of my other hobbies is sharpening knives and I struggle to get a nice picture of the polished edge I worked hard to get so would be good to have an 'idiot's guide' on this.
 
Garry Edwards said:
He's in the effluent south and shoots way better than me, so we don't mix in the same circles:)
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:)
Not from wealthy stock though. Been at least 4 generations of my mums family in the same village - so they predate the rich London commuters and weekend cottage folk. My lot were builders labourers, servants and smalllholders. The day after my oldest Aunt left school at 14 she was taken to a big house (with no prior warning from her mother) and told she would be living there from now on as a kitchen servant. Could walk back home 1 afternoon a week to see her family after that. Harsh lives for some back then. Left the rest of the kids in the family shocked and scared too.
 
MidnightUK said:
I could do with a tutorial on this too as I am useless at it! Any good instructions on the web that you know of?
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I use an Edge Pro Apex just now but with Shapton Glass stones instead of the stock ones. But I am thinking about replacing it with a Hapstone Pro (only sold via the inventor's website called Gritomatic) as it takes the Edge Pro concept and fixes a few issues with it and it's overall sturdier. Lots of vids on YouTube on how to use both. Alternatively if your knives aren't too blunt (will still cut paper just about) then a Spyderco Sharpmaker will do the job.
 
michaelg said:
I use an Edge Pro Apex just now but with Shapton Glass stones instead of the stock ones. But I am thinking about replacing it with a Hapstone Pro (only sold via the inventor's website called Gritomatic) as it takes the Edge Pro concept and fixes a few issues with it and it's overall sturdier. Lots of vids on YouTube on how to use both. Alternatively if your knives aren't too blunt (will still cut paper just about) then a Spyderco Sharpmaker will do the job.
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Why are any of these things needed? I can understand using a simple jig for a plane iron, but knives are the simplest things to sharpen. my pocket knife can cut a single hair, and it rarely sees a stone of any sort it is just stropped on a leather faced block with autosol paste to a polished edge. when I need a new edge, and the last time was over a year ago, I used a fine diamonds stone followed by a hard transparent Arkansas. All my tools pass the hair test.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
Why are any of these things needed? I can understand using a simple jig for a plane iron, but knives are the simplest things to sharpen. my pocket knife can cut a single hair, and it rarely sees a stone of any sort it is just stropped on a leather faced block with autosol paste to a polished edge. when I need a new edge, and the last time was over a year ago, I used a fine diamonds stone followed by a hard transparent Arkansas. All my tools pass the hair test.
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Why use more than a point and shoot? Why use a tripod when you can balance your camera on a nearby wall? I answered a question. If your method works for you, great. The above is what I used just and it works for me.
 
michaelg said:
Why use more than a point and shoot? Why use a tripod when you can balance your camera on a nearby wall? I answered a question. If your method works for you, great. The above is what I used just and it works for me.
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It is just that sharpening a blade that varies in thickness and curvature is more accurately achieved by hand. Using a jig invariably varies the length of the bevel., or the angle included at the edge, or both.
This varies the strength of the cutting edge and its ease of cut. invariably fine blades are ground and finished by hand during manufacture. Though machines exist that can accomplish an equal bevel. on a totally machine made mass produced knife.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
It is just that sharpening a blade that varies in thickness and curvature is more accurately achieved by hand. Using a jig invariably varies the length of the bevel., or the angle included at the edge, or both.
This varies the strength of the cutting edge and its ease of cut. invariably fine blades are ground and finished by hand during manufacture. Though machines exist that can accomplish an equal bevel. on a totally machine made mass produced knife.
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This will be my last post on the subject since I don't want to derail the thread. I have used regular whetstones/oilstones in the past and had reasonable results. However I believe your statement above is really only true in the hands of an experienced sharpener. @MidnightUK appears to have had difficulty in what I presume is the more 'manual' approach of freehand sharpening where maintaining a constant angle across the length of the blade can be tricky and this is where guided systems like the Edge Pro or the Spyderco can help maintain that consistency.

I mostly sharpen kitchen knives for my own use and in a lot of cases, the initial bevel is set by a machine like a belt-sander or similar. Only in the higher end knives (e.g. Japanese knife-makers) do you find that the edge has been ground on a whetstone or similar and is able to shave arm hair, push cut paper with ease, I have had very good results from the EP and Spyderco systems and I would recommend them for someone who isn't keen to put in the hours needed to be able to maintain a constant angle free-hand (and using clip-on guides isn't a great solution there either).

Sure, you can sharpen on the bottom of a porcelain cup, strop on your jeans or newspaper if you like. Will it get good results with enough practice? Sure it will. Are there easier ways to get great results? Yes. I chose the latter option in the end, obviously you prefer more along the lines of the former. Different people like different things. As long as you're happy and I'm happy, let's let @MidnightUK have a read and decide what works for him or her.
 
Terrywoodenpic said:
but knives are the simplest things to sharpen
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Believe me, you would be in tears if you saw my attempts. I am usually ok with DIY and practical stuff but for some reason sharpening almost anything well seems to defeat me. Its an embarrassment as well as very inconvenient.


Anyway, thanks all for the knife sharpening info, I will try looking into this and improving, then maybe if it goes well I can photograph my improved edges using Garrys tutorial. :)
 
MidnightUK said:
Believe me, you would be in tears if you saw my attempts. I am usually ok with DIY and practical stuff but for some reason sharpening almost anything well seems to defeat me. Its an embarrassment as well as very inconvenient.


Anyway, thanks all for the knife sharpening info, I will try looking into this and improving, then maybe if it goes well I can photograph my improved edges using Garrys tutorial. :)
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I can't sharpen anything to save my life, I just have a cheap electric-driven sharpening tool designed for kitchen knives.
The instructions were helpful - "How will I know if I've sharpened my knife properly?" If it will cut vegetables with ease, you've done it right - which I think sums it up nicely.
On the farm, I always carry a knife, a big one. It's used constantly to cut bale band etc, and a big heavy one does the job even if it could have been sharper.

To get back on topic, The knife shoot is now close to being finished, and we should be able to shoot the video on Friday.
 
I've now started writing the tutorial and have a quick question...
Does everyone know the difference between a silk and a scrim, or do I need to explain that?
 
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