Call for Contributions – Archaeological Photographers

As digital photography becomes increasingly ubiquitous, archaeologists are experimenting with their unique professional perspective on a variety of subjects. Bolstered by a long history during which “few scientific fields have used photography as variously and experimentally as archaeology, and few have enjoyed such public enthusiasm mediated by this technology” (Banta et. al 1986:73), digital photography [...]

Fickle Academia

I asked my friend Darren (who is finishing up his PhD and just got accepted to law school!) to assist me with a rather silly idea that I had, inspired by this Norman Rockwell painting:

The idea was that I’d learn to use the professional lighting rig that OKAPI owns, but I know nothing about light [...]

Artifact Photography – Photoshop Deathmatch

I’m trying to fix some photos for an upcoming publication, and one of the most crucial photos, that of a clear glass “blade,” was photographed…let’s just say non-optimally.
I worked with the photo, but I just couldn’t make it come out very well.  Lots of the detail is lost, the jpg compression is bad, etc.  So [...]

Postscript Artifact Photo Scale

I’ve been photographing a bunch of artifacts from the Hearst Museum for the Bahrain Bioarchaeology Project and I wasn’t deeply happy with many of the options available.  I found this site:
http://anthropolo.gy/
But the resolution wasn’t as crispy clean as I wanted.
So here is a postscript file that will convert into pdfs on most computers.  The postscript [...]

Popular Online Visual Aesthetics

Radical remediation, you say?
What’s odd is how ridiculously fun making this image was, and how it felt slightly transgressive.  Would I do the same with a photo of a skeleton?  With an assemblage from a Hansen’s disease settlement? This is actually fairly sedate; I could have added dancing kittens and diamond dollar bill signs.
When you [...]

American Colony Negatives

The American Colony was a utopian society formed by Protestants based in Jerusalem.  First established in 1881, this society would minister to people of all faiths, setting up orphanages, medical clinics, schools, and, oddly enough, a photography studio.  I was introduced to this society a couple of hours ago, in the form of a large [...]

Red and Hands

I finally made something that just might be Archaeography worthy, so I abused my limited moveabletype knowledge and posted an entry over there about the wall paintings and Second Life.  Let’s hope I didn’t break anything in the process.
I’ve been banging away at the buildings in Second Life–they’ll be ready by Wednesday, but only just!  [...]

ViA – 2008

The Visualisation in Archaeology workshop was easily one of the best and most productive conferences I’ve ever attended.  Most of the attendees were presenting as well, and there was only a single session at any one time.  Megan Price’s paper on the Victorian lantern slides produced by H.M.J. Underhill was particularly fascinating, and I approached [...]

Wait, what?

Hm, so it’s a cascade of bones, flowing down a staircase.  Some strange Mesoamerican thing?  Wait, the photo credits say:
“Cover art is from First People in a New World: Colonizing Ice Age America by David J. Meltzer.”
Ice age?  Okay, so pre-architecture, probably megafaunal…yes, those are pedestalled bones.  Were they once in a pit or were [...]

Archaeology in Action Around the World

Here’s another edition of Archaeology in Action, highlighting photography of archaeology aggregated on Flickr.  As always, I encourage you to contribute to the Archaeology in Action Flickr group, especially paired with a Creative Commons license.

Here’s a shot of a trench in Alaska, on Kotzebue Sound from Travis S., dug to test the impact of road [...]