Knife News Wire

Eric Eggly is saying goodbye to knife photography. The longtime knife photographer and founder of PointSeven Studios is taking a job in a different though related industry.

A familiar face at knife shows worldwide, Eggly photographed knives for three decades. For about the past two decades he had owned and operated PointSeven Studios in Toledo and then Maumee, Ohio, where he photographed not only knives but products of many kinds for various companies. It was the latter commercial photography that paid the bills, but it was photographing knives that was among his first loves. Along with a number of other photographers that continue to do so, PointSeven not only photographed custom knives but supplied the photos to knife magazines and other media that helped publicize the makers and their knives worldwide.

In addition to photographing knives in his studio, Eggly also took his photography operation on the road, including shooting knives at knife shows in America and abroad. One of those shows is the world’s largest and most important knife event, the BLADE Show in Atlanta, Georgia—this year’s show will be June 2-4, once again at the Cobb Galleria Centre—for which PointSeven had served as official photographer since 2001.

Among the BLADE Show duties of Eric and his staff were photographing the BLADE Magazine Knife-Of-The-Year® Awards, the winners of the show’s custom knife judging competition, the American Bladesmith Society’s annual award-winning knives, the BLADE Show World Championship Cutting Competitions, and photos of the overall event inside the show hall in the Cobb Galleria Centre, all for use in the annual BLADE Show recap issue of BLADE® Magazine. In addition to the latter, PointSeven photographed any number of custom and factory knives for a goodly amount of the show’s exhibitors, which number near 1,000. Eggly also conducted BLADE Show seminars on how to photograph knives.

As these words are written, the BLADE Show is in the process of finding a replacement for PointSeven as the show’s official photographer.

Eggly’s new job will be chief product officer for F.J. Westcott, a manufacturer of high-end lighting equipment for professional filmmakers and photographers.

See if bushcraft knives with fire steels can take the heat, meet a Marine Corps vet who helps spread the good word of Zac Brown’s knives, learn whether paying knife deposits on custom knives is for you and more in the latest issue of BLADE®—on newsstands now!

BLADE field editor Abe Elias puts four new bushcraft knives, all equipped with fire steels, through a series of tests and critiques. See how they fare and what makes a good bushcraft knife—not what makes good hype—in “Bush The Envelope.”

Losing both legs from above the knee down would understandably destroy most people, but not veteran Marine Staff Sgt. Joey Jones. Fitted with prosthetic devices after the devastating effects of an IED in Afghanistan, he picked up the pieces in civilian life and has become a powerful motivator for individuals, corporations and charities. He also works with Zac Brown’s Southern Ground, which, in addition to the Southern Grind knife company, funds Camp Southern Ground for children, especially those with neuro-developmental disorders or in families with a parent deployed, wounded or lost. Erin Healy examines Jones and Brown’s Southern Ground in “Joined By Knives.”

Ordering a custom knife from a knifemaker and making a down payment—better known as a deposit—on the knife is something collectors have done for many years. But is paying deposits for you? Custom knife purveyor Les Robertson guides you through the do’s and don’ts of the practice in “Knife Deposits: Yea, Nay, Maybe.”

Also in this issue of BLADE:

•The latest in factory automatics, including the cover knife, an entry from Bear & Son Cutlery’s first-ever line of autos, the Bold Action V;

•Learn how the super-lightweight Gerber LST folder changed knife history in “Father of the EDC?”;

•MSG Kim Breed, retired 5th Special Forces, puts a couple of heavy-duty camp knives through the ringer in “Is Bigger Better?”;

•James Morgan Ayres tests four of the latest factory tomahawks in “Tomahawk Toughies”;

•BLADE field editor Ed Fowler recounts his lifelong addiction to knives in “Just Say Yes!”;

•In “A Linerlock On Roller Skates,” Leroi Price describes a new approach to the linerlock developed by Jake Hoback;

•BLADE field Dexter Ewing concludes his three-part series on 12 of the newest knife sharpeners in “The Hone Zone”;

•Reload your knife with sharp blades or simply discard them in “The Replaceables” by Pat Covert, and;

•You can almost hear the mosaic damascus “snakes” on Greg Cimms’ chef’s knife blade hiss in “The Dubai Vipers.”

You get all this and much more in the latest BLADE. Click here for the download edition. To subscribe to BLADE, click here for the domestic print edition, here for the international print subscription, here for the Canadian print subscription and here for the digital subscription.