To set this up, I began by gluing a rare earth magnet to the end of a 3 ft. section of steel rod. I then stuck the other end of the rod into a shallow hole in the wall at maybe 4 ft. or so from the floor. (I had already covered the wall with a dark cloth for my backdrop). The knife was then stuck to the free end of the rod by the magnet.
The lighting consists of one incandescent bulb in a trouble light fixture, which I clamped onto the back of a chair at a strategic place, just to the right of the picture. I then set up large pieces of white card (about 5 or 6 total) in various places to reflect light back to the subjects and to control glare on the knife blade.
And yes, that's me with my nose to the knife point! My original plan was to "balance" the knife on a fingertip. I did a number of shots of this (which was way easier than the nose!), but they just seemed to lack in interest or drama or something. So I then tried this set up. It was really interesting doing this, as my camera has no remote - only a 10 second timer. So I composed the shot, clicked the shutter button, and moved quickly (but very carefully!) into position (sitting on a pile of magazines of the proper height), and ever-so-gently nudged my nose up into the knife point. I took around 80 shots in this manner, trying different angles and facial expressions. My nose is still a little sore almost 24 hrs. later!
My post processing was fairly straight-forward. In Paint Shop Pro 8 - histogram contrast adjust, saturation enhance, a little noise removal, crop, add borders, resize, unsharp mask, compress & save. I decided to leave the knife slightly skewed from the vertical to try to keep it looking as natural as possible.
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Nice use of light for that shadow line. Well set up.
That's definitely a knife.
I play with my students like this. At around 7 years old, they get a real kick out of anyone balancing anything on the face even if its just for a second! Stick a pen on the end of your chin for a half second and they start calling you a magician.
Clever. Great imagination. I might tone down the red tones of the skin a touch, but the composition and light is spot on. Good use of negative space too. 8
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