Old Dirt - New Thoughts

I spent today messing around with photographing a basalt point from the King Salmon site. I struggled getting the lighting and the camera settings to capture all the details of the flake scars and yet still show the proper black basalt color.

Here is the end result. I’m using a digital Nikon D70s with an old 105 mm macro lens (the lens doesn’t work with any of the camera’s electronic functions). We have a pretty basic photo stand and lamp set up in our lab. I use a frosted glass plate to lift the artifacts above their shadow. For editing the images I have an old copy of Corel Photo-Paint left over from my dissertation days. I’d never stitched images together before - so I felt pretty pleased with myself that I could figure it all out.

I know I’m behind the times when it comes to artifact illustrations. I’m always really impressed by good illustrations. Some of the best work I’ve seen recently is being done by people using scanners. I like the idea of using scanners since you’d get images of a uniform size. One of my goals for the King Salmon photo documentation is to be able to combine into a single image what ever set of artifacts that I want. My results today will work, but I’m sure there are easier ways to get the images. Any ideas?

I’m actually very intrigued by the interplay between art and science, especially when it comes to illustrations in archaeology. I like crisp, simple photographs and drawings when I am documenting my work. But on this blog and in my talks I want illustrations that capture both the objects and sites, but also people. The photograph of the basalt point is effective at capturing the object’s details, but is otherwise a boring image. I much prefer photographing objects being held by a human hand and with a natural background when I want a more interesting image. I feel the same way about field photographs. Stratigraphy profile shots are a part of virtually every archaeological report and conference presentation. Pictures of very dark brown soil grading into dark brown soil aren’t all that exciting to look at, even for other archaeologists. Having a crew member working off to the side, though, and the image has some zest. Like most archaeologists, I take some boring pictures for documentary purposes only. But I like to add a little something for the astute observer. Take a close look at this profile of shell midden lenses at Aniakchak and you should be able to spot a Star Wars Boba Fett doll with his arms raised in triumphant celebration of a nicely cleaned wall.

For another view of archaeology and photography check out this note by Michael Shanks of Standford University. If you just want to see some amazing photographs of archaeological sites check out James Jacob’s Archaeoblog.