Photographic rendition of artifacts is not a mystery that should stump
the reasonably intelligent user. Today's cameras are quite user-friendly,
if not too automatic.
Too automatic? Yes. In the "good old days" everything depended upon the
skills of the photographer, who has more recently been replaced by a
microchip. Certain general principles:
1. Control your focus. In an artifact photograph, you don't want the
background to be clearly intelligible. We used to call this selective
focus. There probably is a button or switch for this on most auto
cameras. The best guideline is to use a long lens and a large aperture,
which reduce the depth of focus to the plane of the object. If you can
keep the object parallel to the film plane, the focus will not be a problem.
2. Keep light simple. In a studio, you can control lights and
backgrounds, but most artifact photos are taken in tents, temporary labs,
or other alfresco sites. I like the shade of a tree, or an overcast day,
with white cards for reflectors to infill shadows. Amateurs are well
advised to keep away from artificial lights. The best place for a
non-photographer is a site with good diffuse natural light.
3. Simplify your chemistry and equipment. Amateurs often over-equip
themselves. It's easy to do too much. We do all our photography on a
"type c" color print film. It's easy to get color or black-and-white
prints from color print film. Slides can be made directly from color
negatives. Halftones from color prints are generally better than
halftones from black-and-white prints. Whatever you do, don't get
over-involved with the technology of photography. Rochester, New York, is
full of people who can do that better than any of us.
4. Think of the future. It's not enough to do your photography on
archival film, with archival paper, etc., etc., etc. Each picture should
be self-documenting. In the old days, we had formal sheet-film photos
with letterboards in them, plus snapshots, plus slides. The sheet-film
photographs went into reports and were archival, and the rest was
disposable. Today all the cameras are SLR rollfilm and all the pictures
go into a single file. The file should be structured so that you can
understand what you are looking at, with as little reference as possible
to any index materials. How many of us have tried to piece together old
or damaged files? Keep it simple, and keep it retrievable.
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