Archaeological Photography

On Monday mornings I am forced to be at UCL early in order to sit-in on a brand new class being offered for the first time here at UCL – Archaeological Photography.  While I don’t like to pay the full £10 for the “All-Day Travel Pass” that I need to use the British Rail and Underground systems during “Peak Hours”, it is worth every penny!

Today was the first class.  We met in the photography lab where we were treated to a brief (and by “brief” I mean 2 hours) lecture on the most basic of photography techniques.  I loved it!  I have heard many of the terms in my life at various points but never really understood what they were talking about.  To this time, my favorite camera has been the Canon Powershot that I bought back in 2004 because it takes fantastic photos!  I don’t understand the Olympus camera that I have now with all of its settings and gadgets.  By the end of this term I will!

He started us off with conventional cameras (which we will work with for a few weeks).  He feels that if we understand them, we will be better ready to understand how to manipulate the digital cameras.

Simple things like “Format indicates the type of photography a person will be taking” made no sense to me before. Now I understand that “format” refers to the size of the film being used.  A 5” x 4” film is what has been used for photographing objects in Black and White for publishing in the past because of the size and detail available.  Another example is 35mm film, which has been the industry standard since the end of World War II because that was the size used in the movie industry.  After the war 35mm film was the only format widely available due to the destruction of the factories.  Someone was able to adapt 35mm film to still photography and a standard was born.  This 33mm film is a 3:2 ratio, which is why we get the 6 x 4 inch photos back from the developer.

I was also not aware that digital cameras take various sizes of photographs (and I am not talking about file size (ie 1mb) but format size).  For example, the Canon 30D uses a 22.5 x 15 mm photo format.

We learned about “Lens Swing” technique and “Depth of Field” to manipulate the subject of the photo into focus at various depths. 

We learned about the types of lenses available and when to use each.  For example, the wide angle lens is good for survey work if used right because it is able to pick up more of the area.  He used a 24mm lens at Machu-Picchu to get all of the site without falling off the cliff due to backing up too far.

We also learned about duration of exposure (“shutter speed”) and amount of light (“aperture”) and how to manipulate these in various circumstances to get the shot we need.  He also talked about lighting and the use of scales to give proper perspective of size.

He ended class with a little hands-on demonstration where we learned by using conventional cameras how to set the shutter speed, aperture, and distance.  Next week we will look at lighting more in-depth and get more experience with the cameras of various brands.

The best thing about this is that we are not just talking about photography in general, but about specifically photography used in different archaeological contexts.  This is what he has done all of his life and has always wanted to pass on what he has learned.  It was delightful!