Toushou Monogatari

For more than 10 years I photographed swordsmith Takami Kuniichi at work producing Japanese swords. This is a fraction of the images taken during that time that I am currently working on to publish. The title essentially translates to "Story of a (Japanese) Swordsmith". The images are laid out in the general steps of creating a sword, from the initial hammering out, folding and lengthening the ingot, the tempering and the final polishing and detailing.