Thanks for all the compliments. I have started a keeper case of the personal best of each point style that I can make and that one so far has the "dalton" spot. When I make one that I feel is better weather artistic or authentic wise it will get replaced. I have never done a case like that usually if it goes in it stays in unless its a case of points for sale. The case so far has that dalton, a susquehanna made of texas material, a perkiomen made of PA jasper, a georgetown hardin, a snyders made from onondaga, and my "best failure" so far....that one will most likely never leave that spot in the case, some of you have saw it for those that havent I will post a pic sometime.
So to answer the photography questions. First off I never (well hardly ever) modify a point that I photograph, but I do modify the photograph itself. Below is an example, the point is "identical" in both but its surroundings changed in photoshop. I took the picture at a spring knap-in (Oregon Ridge). I liked the burlap background but wanted to make it less busy. So once again I did not alter the point just its surroundings.
When photographing anything good light is key. If you have bad light you most likely will have a bad photo. So for this one I used the sun to light the point, but placed a whitish card on the opposite side of the point to bounce some light back to it, you can see the card in the first photo. Dark points like the dalton in the original post really pop when you place a fill card (anything white) on the opposite side of the light source weather its the sun, an off camera flash, or a table lamp. It helps to fill in the shadowy areas. So thats the gist of it. If anyone wants I can explain alittle more how I photograph my points with ways that you can do with a simple digital camera.
nclonghunter- Im not 100% sure the material, its definitely out of either new york or ohio
Zuma- Nice attempt at figuring out how I photographed it. I spent my drive home from work (about 30min) figuring out how to duplicate it that way you thought it was originally done, I am so going to try it. I got it all figured out except how to get the glass perfectly clean. Hopefully I can post my attempt soon!