A few scenes from the 2010 Arkansas Knifemakers Association custom knife show

[Buddy Thomason]

#1 Fisk and friends at the hotel, Thurs. eve.


#2 About 2/3 of the show floor on Sunday mid-day. It was packed Saturday morning. "Better than last year" almost everyone said.


#3 How to create a brand... Jerry Fisk is a country boy genius. That's "Bob" watching Jerry's table.


#4 The looking (and buying)...


#6 Chuck and Mary Ward back in the photo studio. Chuck is president and show photographer. Mary is also totally involved. It was a huge success in my opinion.


#7 John Perry, ABS Mastersmith, left, and Mark Zalesky, editor of Knife World are agog over Mark's e-bay snag. On the other side of the handle there are several Masonic symbols, one rather rare. Jim Batson, keeper of all Bowie knowledge and top expert in these matters, believes this knife was made by none-other than James Black in Old Washington, AR - almost universally accepted maker of the famous sandbar duel Bowie knife that started it all. But the story is not over. Mark, the great depth of his Bowie knife knowledge I can only imagine, disagrees! Stay tuned. The investigations continue. Why is John Perry there? Because, he doesn't know it yet, but he's going to build that knife. He can't not do it. He loves that stuff. (I do too. Who wouldn't?)

[Kevin Jones]

Great see & shoot photos as always.

Thanks Buddy.

[Jim Treacy]

Buddy,

Great action photos from the show.

Nice to see that Jerry Fisk brought the Mini me twins to watch his table.

Jim Treacy

[Buddy Thomason]

Thanks for the positive feedback. That coffin handle American Bowie knife from the early 1800's of Mark Z's was a highlight for me.

It's evident that one of my overlay experiments didn't work as some folks here and elsewhere got the idea from #3 above that there are two of the little guys. No, just trying to get more info into the frame. Here's the scene without the overlay:



Now, 'the little guy' is there at the corner of Jerry's table, first one in the second row very near the entrance to the show. The little guy's name is not Bob. Bob is the lady there behind Jerry's table while he's off galavanting somewhere. Somebody asked her, "What's Bob short for?" and she said "Robert." She has what you'd call a dry wit.

For you camera buffs - #2 above required me to really push my camera. ISO 1250, handheld. Despite the hype it looks like for now, given the current batch of high end DSLRs, the practical ISO limit for the average pro photographer sits at about 3,200. It might get a lot better but then we're talking about cameras that can 'see' in the dark (not infrared)! That seems a bit much to me when other areas impacting image quality need more immediate attention. My camera (Canon 1D MKII) is already dated in this regard. Still, I'm impressed with the low noise at 1,250. It's not so much that noise was not present, esp. in the shadows and dark areas, but that it was easy to get rid of using standard PSCS4 tools.