Silver Forks Lined in a Row

A few weeks ago, I purchased a second-hand Rokinon 14mm F2.8 lens. It is a beautiful lens with clear, sharp images. 

Today, I decided to try it out on a project that I'm working on for Don Giannatti's Project P52. Each week, Don gives us an assignment to shoot. This week, the assignment was "forks" and "change."

I found several sets of vintage silver forks in the cellar a few months ago. My mother had bought a big box of silver flatware at an auction sale years ago. 
With props in hand, I started to sketch out ideas for "change." In the middle of ideas popping and sketching, I decided an interesting "change" would be a switch from my go-to Tokina 100mm lens to the Roninon 14mm lens. 
I think it made for some interesting shots.

SPOTLIGHT VERSION 1
All the forks are lined up on a black-top table. I experimented with small and large aperture settings. I liked the f18 setting and manually blurred the foreground with lens blur in Photoshop. With a few more enhancements in Photoshop, I added a layer of NikEffects bleach

SPOTLIGHT VERSION 2
Same process but opened a larger spot light over the focal point.

SPOTLIGHT VERSION 3
All the photographs were with natural light and long exposures.
Photoshop enhancement, NikEffects film effect and finally, layering a spot of light over the fork.

LINEUP ROW 1
My first test shots. I laid out the forks, but didn't polish or fix them. As much as I like the rustic and worn look of the forks, I eventually polished them and fixed the tines.
Photoshop darkening the edges and contrast adjustment, then NikEffects vintage filter.

LINEUP ROW FLIPPED
Flip the image in Photoshop, then added NikEffects Analog vintage camera

LINEUP ROW 2
Photoshop enhancement in contrast, then added NikEffect Supercross pop.

BTS: The foreground fork was centimeters away from the lens.