Hello across the Tasman to all of you in Australia. I thought I’d put pen to paper ( or fingers to the keyboard ) on the subject of Knife photography. It is something that I struggled with over a period of time and I get the impression that people get some fairly varied results – usually not good – when embarking on the process.

I am not coming in from the direction of being an expert, that I am definitely not and if you are happy with the results you are getting then I may not be able to add to your information on the subject. If however you feel an improvement is on the cards then maybe this will help, so read on.

The greatest assistance I found to improve my photography was an article on the making of a light box by Jim Cooper on the knife network forum.

Jim Cooper some of you will know is a very “ up there “ professional photographer who does a lot of knife photography and was good enough to post an article that he entitled a “ No Frills “ $75 home studio tent/lightbox.

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Knife - Handle Woods - Australia's Desert Acacias, Part 1

Desert acacias or wattles as they are sometimes called, include woods from the deserts and "outback" regions of Australia. They are usually from small, often twisted trees or large shrubs. They include species like mulga, various gidgees, minneritchie, myalls and lesser-known, yet equally interesting species like waddywood, purpleheart wattle, western snakewood, bowyakka and even raspberry jam! Yes some do smell of raspberries and even flowers, like violets or boronia. These qualities become apparent when grinding and polishing. Neat eh? They all originate from our dry, outback, hot-forged and slow-grown in the desiccating desert sands.

These desert woods have for millennia been used for weapons and tools (eg spears, boomerangs, digging sticks, clubs etc) and most recently also for tool and knife handles. Their low natural moisture contents mean that they don't shrink much on drying or in service. Some compare with the best woods in the world (eg like ebony or Arizona desert ironwood) for their beauty and usefulness especially for fine, custom made knives and in other small turned or carved hand crafts (like pens, jewelery etc).

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