An archaeological approach to photography -
media archaeology, focusing on
medium as mode of engagement;
also serving as notes for Archaeography - the class.
points
- archival photographs, of sites now changed or lost, for example, or of museum artifacts not available for direct inspection, may play a significant role in data gathering and the inscription of information
- specialized formats, such as stereoscopic aerial photographs or satellite images, may play a role of sensory prosthetic - an augmentation of looking and seeing
- there is an irony in much use of photography in archaeology - while photographs may be taken with the intention of documenting "evidence" (a ditch cut or a bronze fibula), I know of no discussion in archaeology centered on the interpretation of a photograph of an archaeological deposit, for example
- photographs are often taken on an archaeological site as notes (aides memoires for the director in writing up the project), as archival objects (evidencing what is claimed in a text report), as visual aids (slides for a lecture), as testimony that the excavation, for example, was conducted correctly
- photographs are often taken of the process of excavation
- though this process of excavation is usually interpreted as cleaned-up surfaces and sections, with scale included, there is a growing interest in a more ethnographic kind of documentation of excavation as fieldwork - photoethnography, photographs of people at work, for example, in a kind of visual anthropology of archaeology
- rather than documentary evidence in a forensic context (photographs of the in situ, undisturbed aftermath of a crime, for example), archaeological photographs are often quite the opposite - of highly processed locations (excavated, sanitized and prepared for documentation)
- it is not surprising therefore that drawings (plans and sections, artifact drawings) are usually preferred to photographs - they contain more interpretation, less mess
- the last three points mean that scientific photography in archaeology often involves a reduction of resolution/detail, in order to secure interpretive clarity
a relatively recent development in the use of photography in archaeology is to document archaeological practice
- the experience of the fieldwork, of the team - the process of engagement with the past
- this connects with an ethnographic purpose for archaeological photography - documenting people's engagement with things
importance then of narrative/composition/photo series/photo stories
see Ruth Tringham's recent experiments in this connection -
