Expectations vs. Outcomes: Photography


We started taking digital pictures of the Hetherington Collection in January. Armed with our trusty SLR, we presumed that lamps would not be all that difficult to photograph. After all, they don’t move, they’re not shiny, and they’re not very big. As it turns out, lamps are especially tricky to photograph, especially in the unflattering glow of the fluorescent lighting in the anthropology lab here at U of W. Val McKinley and Jodi Schmidt, the curator of the anthropology collection and the anthro lab technician, have graciously allowed us the run of the lab for our photoshoots and we’ve discovered that the best photographic equipment is often whatever happens to be close by at the moment.
  
Just right
Our biggest challenge so far has been getting the lighting just right. (The irony being that lamps, as it turns out, are hard to light.) Our goal is to make the images we create representative of what we see with the naked eye. We have 3 priorities in this: to capture the details of the design of the lamps, the colour of the clay, and details like fingerprints or wick fibres. We started by trying out different lighting conditions: first with a light box illuminating the objects from below to eliminate shadow then with 2 movable lights. Finally we’ve discovered that the best images are taken on the floor (a bit farther away from the fluorescent ceiling lights) and without the aid of other artificial lighting.
    Too washed out/not enough detail


 We’ve also realized that what looks good on the camera display does not always translate to a good image on the computer screen. In particular, we’ve found that the orange and salmon hues of terra cotta are overemphasized by the SLR camera and that sometimes, a cellphone creates a more faithful image.


Too red/too dark

As it turns out, we are learning more day by day about photography, meaning our research has extended far beyond the lamps. Once we turn to some of the wooden and metallic objects in the collection, we’ll have to start the process again.


                                                       

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