Sharp for sure 
.
[Edit: wb]
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Or not so sharp… or shiny? Anyone guess what this is? Hint: it is meant for cutting - otherwise I wouldn’t have posted in this thread.
I can’t remember what lens I used… it was reverse mounted on a set of Pentax bellows… I think it was a 28mm K-mount Tokina. @Claes , hope you don’t mind me posting in here…
Impromptu guesses: Bottle opener? Pipe cutter?
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It’s part of a chainsaw - the cutting teeth, I guess they could be called.
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Claes , hope you don’t mind me posting in here…
Not at all!
However I wonder whether someone will be able to
find the proper reply to the original question:
But how on earth does one visualize sharpness?
How to document in an image that an edge is sharp,
as opposed to blunt…
I think the best way would be to show it in action, cutting through something… not quite sure how though. I’ll try to try!
@afre and @MetalMick99 thanks for the guesses, Michael you’re absolutely right. 
A chainsaw cutting tooth. The field of view is about 10mm for a guess. Thanks!
HELP! 
No. That is not considered a cut,
and does not need a sharp edge.
A hint: there is a way to show a sharp edge…
Oho! I think you know already 
… not that it helps. I’ve no new ideas!
I knew I should have put a sarcasm tag on my post.
I should also have used sabre rather than épée, since this is a cutting weapon. The difficulty is that at top level competitions, the background is black, which makes the blade difficult to see. At lower levels, you often lose the blade in a messy background.
Is it not possible to use a speedlight at a low setting? Could create some really cool reflections with the dark background and the athletes in the foreground 
At a competition, no. I have used flash and other light sources in a club situation.
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So we have photographic proof that translucent steel exists…
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When discussing fencing with those who don’t know the sport, I generally post this link. In this case to illustrate why, given the speed of the action and the illumination, it is difficult to get a good still image.
Oh, and for @Claes, this is cutting rather than poking 
EDIT: I should add that this is from the 2012 Olympics in London. I was a volunteer, I was on the video camera for the referees’ video replays.
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I responded to this, but I fear I was somewhat flippant, for that I apologise.
We have recently had a 2022 retrospective, and I and other people produce “Play Raw” pictures for people to play with. However, I wonder if there should be a new category, of which this is an example.
I see the post by @Claes as a challenge, given a subject then see what you can do to fulfil it.
I have always hated the tendency of photographic societies to concentrate on battles against other clubs rather than aiming to produce better photographs. I would appreciate a challenge category designed to test our skills. What do others think?
Anyway, here are a selection of photographs that attempt to fulfil the brief. They are all cooking related, the first two are for scoring bread dough (sometimes called grignettes) before baking. I’ll leave you to work out what the last one is.
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This is supposed to do the trick:
On a blunt knife, light is reflected from the edge.
On a sharp knife, there is no light reflections from the edge.
This is a blunt edge:
Have fun!
Claes in Lund, Sweden
Maybe use a diffuser to spread the light?
You can possibly produce some interference patterns with a sharp edge that you can’t do with a blunt one.