Photography For Archaeologists

In this revised and updated edition of his 1989 book, Peter Dorrell provides a comprehensive guide to the uses of photography in archaeology. Drawing on thirty-five years of experience, he examines the use of photography in field archaeology, in surveys, in archaeological laboratories, and in conservation. He offers a clear and well-illustrated explanation of the techniques involved, with sections on equipment and materials, survey and site photography, architectural photography, the recording of different types of artifacts, registration and storage, the use of ultra-violet and infra-red, and photography for publication. He also covers the growing use of video and electronic recording systems.

Through photographs we preserve the past, and looking for the past is the very job of the archaeologist. But what are we looking at in an archaeological photograph? Archaeological photography is often largely deserted, to be scanned with a forensic gaze, towards finding evidence of what once took place. At the same time, photographs of excavated sites and artefacts have revealed stunning ancient works, shot as works of art. In Photography and Archaeology, Frederick Bohrer examines some of history's most famous archaeological excavations, as well as lesser-known and previously unpublished finds, from the Mediterranean, Middle East, Asia, Europe and the Americas, and the ways these sites have been represented in photographs. Bohrer shows how the development of photography in the nineteenth century made archaeology available to a much wider audience, and he discusses how these images revealed the material traces of the past, as well as their meaning and use today. Spanning the dual histories of both photography and archaeology, the book makes evident how what we know of the archaeological past has always been related to how it has been photographically represented and circulated: in scholarly papers, popular accounts, scientific archives, museum catalogues and numerous other formats. Bohrer concludes that such images possess contending, if not mutually exclusive, properties. While photography seems to guarantee documentary objectivity, at the same time it also fundamentally alters the archaeological object, transforming it into a work of art. Along the way, he discusses archaeological examples and images by photographers including Maxime du Camp, Francis Frith, John Beazley Greene, Ernst Herzfeld and others, to more contemporary photographers such as Aaron Levin, Roger Wood and Marilyn Bridges. Beautifully illustrated with fine archaeological images, many published here for the first time, Photography and Archaeology will be of interest to archaeologists, art historians and photographers, as well as anyone concerned with, or captivated by, archaeology's ongoing engagement with the past.--

Does a photograph freeze a moment of time? What does it mean to treat a photographic image as an artefact? In the visual culture of the 21st century, do new digital and social forms change the status of photography as archival or objective – or are they revealing something more fundamental about photography’s longstanding relationships with time and knowledge?Archaeology and Photography imagines a new kind of Visual Archaeology that tackles these questions. The book reassesses the central place of Photography as an archaeological method, and re-wires our cross-disciplinary conceptions of time, objectivity and archives, from the History of Art to the History of Science.Through twelve new wide-ranging and challenging studies from an emerging generation of archaeological thinkers, Archaeology and Photography introduces new approaches to historical photographs in museums and to contemporaryphotographic practice in the field. The book re-frames the relationship between Photography and Archaeology, past and present, as more than a metaphor or an analogy – but a shared vision.Archaeology and Photography calls for a change in how we think about photography and time. It argues that new archaeological accounts of duration and presence can replace older conceptions of the photograph as a snapshot orremnant received in the present. The book challenges us to imagine Photography, like Archaeology, not as a representation of the past and the reception of traces in the present but as an ongoing transformation of objectivity and archive.Archaeology and Photography will prove indispensable to students, researchers and practitioners in History, Photography, Art, Archaeology, Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies and Museum and Heritage Studies.

This book is designed to aid the photographer, archaeologist, and others interested in the basic techniques of archaeological photography. The author demonstrates how to set up photographs of archaeological artifacts for documentation and publication and presentation slides along with photographing excavation progress in the filed and site plans. Beginning with the techniques explained here a photographer will be able to solve almost any problem that could come up at an excavation.

The photographic archive has been digitally catalogued and documented, and is accessed by researchers, curators, historians and teams of scholars. The material is now being made available to a larger academic community and the general public through a series of publications that are accompanied by exhibitions and seminars. Each volume, under the editorship of a specialist in the field, examines a particular region or topic represented in the archive, encouraging cross-disciplinary approaches and interpretations. --Book Jacket.