~RPS ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
~RPS
Cha irman's Letter
ROYAL PHOTOGRAPHIC SOCIETY
ARCHAEOLOGY & HERITAGE GROUPCOMMITTEE Chairman Chelln Miller LRPS 49 Stephens Road Tunbridge Wells KentTN49JD heritageweb@rps .org Secretary RodneyThring LRPS 27 College Road Camberley Surrey GU15 4JP rodney.thring@btinternet.com Treasurer Jim Tonks ARPS Earlton 174 Chairborough Road High Wycombe Bucks HPl 2 3HW francistonks@hotmail .com Committee Members R.Keith Evans FRPS Eric Hou Ider LRPS Ken Keen FRPS Dr Mike Sasse Garry Bisshopp ARPS Walter Brooks Published by the Archaeology and Heritage Group of the Royal Photographic Society October 2016 ISSN 0-904495-00-0 Copyright in all text and photographs is held by the credited authors, or as otherwise stated . No part of this publication may be reproducd , transmitted or stored in any form without prio r written permission of the Publisher.
Edltorlal Board Chelin Miller & Eric Houlder
Cover photo The Queen's Chapel of the Savoy, London . See Takingpicturesin 'difficult' light, page 6. By R.Keith Evans FRPS
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elcome to the Autumn edition of Heritage Photography.A lot has happened this year and we've had excellent outings of different kinds, from archaeological sites to medieval castle ruins and Victorian steam engines.
It is no coincidence that three of the articles in this issue are illustrated with photographs of churches or church artefacts. From great cathedrals to remote country chapels, these places of worsh ip are, perhaps, the single most popular subject of photography for our Group members; a number of members have for many years worked closely with the National Churches Trust in recording the historic buildings to which it has awarded grants or loans to assist with their maintenance and preservation, work which I'm sure will continue for the future. The word Heritage encompasses a wide scope of concepts, which is why this Group is so rich in the range of interests covered. But the one thing that brings us all together is Photography. And we mustn't forget that. In the words of Paul Lester:
'"'A photographer does not operate a camera in order to merely take pictures. Photographic work is always personal. A photograph reveals the photographer." Whether you enjoy taking photographs of buildings, people, artefacts or landscapes, your vision, your political, personal views and your idiosyncrasies will reflect in the images you make. How you decide to frame the photo, the moment you decide to press the shutter, your choice of aperture and speed, all these factors will determine how your photograph will look and it will be different from any other photograph taken by anybody else. And THAT is what makes photography unique. I recently returned to Argentina, my country of birth, after many years of absence. I took the opportunity to photograph the Gauchosand their traditions before they disappear. I wanted to preserve in my memory that vision of the past that is rapidly succumbing to modernity and globalisation . That is what photography does to me: it preserves a moment in my mind and it allows me to share it. I hope you enjoy this issue and, as always, I encourage members to share your work by sending us your contributions. Best wishes,
CheUnMiller Heritage Photography Heritage Photography is pub lished by the RPS Archaeology & Heritage Group twice a year: Spring and Autumn (contri buti on deadlines are 1st March and 1st September , respectively) . All contrbutions should be submitted t o the Editor. Items covering any aspect of archaeology and heritage photography are welcome , including insp irational stor'ies, technique , reviews of equipment , exhibiti ons, books, etc. Copy should be sent as .tx t or .doc files by email . Digital images (port rait or landscape orien t ation) should be supplied by email or throu gh a file sharing platfo rm (such as Dropbo x, wel ransfer or similar) or CD rom . Please rename your photos : YournameSurname _PHOTONAME, CMYK or sRGB colou r mode , high resolut i~n (300dpi) jpgs or t ifs, fi le size approx 6MB. For more informa t ion , please contac t t he Edito r at herit ageweb@rps.org .
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Autumn 2016
Every picture ... tells its story Rockart appears to be a universalhuman activity. Scenesfrom the deep Stone Age past are famous In sites suchas LascauxIn France,and In Australiathere is similar art going back at least 50,000 years. Gwil Owen ARPSexploressome of this traditional art in the Aboriginal Landsof Northern Australia.
Earlyrockpainting in Australia'sKakaduNational Park.On the right is 'Lightning Man; making thunder and lightning to presagethe rainy season.
e can see the modern equivalent of such historical art in 'John loves Susan' scrawled on many a bus shelter in Britain. Now the difference between this modern graffito and pictures of ancient bison is that the latter tell us nothing about those who painted the art, as individuals, nor the details of the stories depicted.
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In Australia, however, the rock paintings there (still being added to today) show an ethnic and cultural continuity of some 10,000 years, possibly for the full timescale. This lets us explore the question 'how did these early humans think?: rather than 'what did these people do?' Dating the art is done with a variety of techniques. The oldest examples can be dated using radioactive isotope analysis of the rock, or of the sand layers that may cover it. Organics of more recent origin are Carbon 14 dated, while the appearance of some estuarine fish in the art can be correlated with the sea level rise in around 10,000BP which flooded the coastal plain of northern Australia.
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Different pigments and motifs help also to define
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distinct periods .of rock art production. Though most of the art is in sheltered spots such as cliff overhangs, some is fully exposed on cliff faces, and seems to have survived equally well.
Passingon the family history This art has an interactive role in the life of the local families on whose ancestral land it lies. It is the background - the audio visual aid in modern terms - for stories of ancestors and creator beings. Each family has a story teller whose job is to pass on their history to new generations. This is not a rote recital of previous tellings: the teller is expected to use his or her own words and glosses within the framework of the overall tale. Similarly, as the paintings are kept fresh for a new generation each artist can make modification to them. It is not surprising that the same stories vary in detail across the continent. For example, the rainbow serpent is a universal creator story. In northern Australia she comes out of the seas around the Coburg Peninsula. In other areas she is already living underground inland before starting her activities.
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Typicallandscapeof Northern Australia, and the distant cliffs wheremany of theserock paintings have been found. Accessto them is by arrangement with the local custodians.
This general homogeneity suggests that the native Australian {in this case Arnhem Land) culture does indeed reach back into the deep past. 'Lightning Man: for example, whose home is in the distant cliffs in my landscape picture, is said to appear at the start of the rainy season, making thunder (with his axe) and lightning, to precede the downpours to come. Historic legend or everyday activity Other human figures are more enigmatic, and it is not, perhaps, surprising, given the fallibility of human memory or loss of interest over time, that some of the pictures have lost their meaning. Or they may never have had their own story : they are just pictures of everyday activities of animals or, latterly, of interesting incomers to the land.
Typicalrock painting in Kakadu.
Thispanel of the Anbangbang rock shelterat Nourfangie was last painted in the 1960s;herein 2004 a team from Cambridge Universityis using a laserscannerto measureany subsequent degradation.
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Researchingall this is instructive and enjoyable. The art is spectacular, the landscape fantastic, the culture exotic and - geographically speaking - as far away from us as is possible. But we should not just play at this . All ofit is a yardstick against which to measure ourselves. Goethe said "man knows himself only to the extent that he knows the world'~Who are we to disagree? Thelegendary 'RainbowSerpent'.
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Unlike'LightningMan' other human figuresare now enigmatic. Wedon't know the story of this figure with a tall feathered headdress(partly delineatedwith blobsof beeswax),and unlessa closeequivalentcan be found elsewhereits history will be lost.
A wallaby with its baby (detail below).Thepigmentation is thought to be from an earlierperiod than the 'X-ray'versionshown opposite.
Thefigure at left is recent- not an Australiannative?But traditional hunting methodsare often pictured, sometimeswith human victims.Thehunters/fightersbrandishingspearson the right are alsocarryingdilly bagsfor their personalcharms.
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Taking pictures in 'difficult' light How high dynamic range recording using digi tal cameras has simplifie d the one-time problem of handling high-contras t subje cts such as buildin g interio rs. Text and pictures by R. K. Evans.
emember the old 'compensating developer'? In the days of film, it wasn't easy to take successful photos in very contrasty light - either the brightest parts of the picture were over-exposed, qr the darkest shadow areas were under-exposed - in either case, you could see no detail in those areas. So the so-called compensating developer (often a two-bath formula) was called into play, producing a noticeably lower-contrast negative which could be more easily printed. Film had a limited 'dynamic range' in which it could see detail, about 8:1 or three f-stops, whereas today's digital sensorscan record detail over a wider range of brightness in a scene, at least five f-stops. But for some scenes, such as building interiors where windows are included in the image, even this may not be enough to record detail in both highlights and shadows. So we come to HDRor 'high dynamic range' recording, where either'in -camera' or later in your image-processing software you can greatly widen the range of highlight and shadow in which detail is visible in your picture.
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them to give the optimum result. This replicates incamera what we're now going to do on our computer. In post-processing
Some scenes, unlike a simple landscape, may have extremes of contrast (very bright and very dark areas, such as building interiors with brightly-lit windows) which we can't accommodate in-camera. Here is where we come to HDR recording in a digital camera. The idea is to take a series of shots at steadily increasing exposures: the first to correctly expose the window, or the scene beyond it; and the last (the third or fifth perhaps) to correctly expose the dark interior. Typical exposures might be 1/100 down to 1/5 of a second at fS.6 and ISO 100. (Never alter t he apertu re, just the shutte r speed). Then, on your compute r, open all three .or five images. Two methods are now open to us: the first is to select that part of the image, say the brightest window, which looks correctly exposed. Click 'move: then slide and drop that selection into the image where the interior is correctly exposed; make sure the two are aligned, and click 'enter~ This is the method I used to merge the two pictures In-camera below, individually selecting the two windows with Before turning to HDR, let's look at the easiest way of precise use of the 'magnetic lasso' in Photoshop, and all. Suppose you are recording an archaeological site moving them across to the lighter, left-hand, image. (In excavation, one side in shadow, the other in bright fact I used an even darker image than the one shown sunlight. The simplest way to record detail in both is to on the right, but here in print it wou ld just appear as an put a graduated filter over the front of your lens, with the almost solid black with two correctly-exposed windows). darker ('grey') part angled to cover the sunlit part of the The final result is shown on the opposite page, a more image and so darkening it relative to the shadowed area. realistic impression of what I saw by eye. Should a blue sky be part of the scene, use a polarising The second and simpler way, if your processing software filter and rotate it until the sky is suitably darkened. And allows, is to let it do the work automatically. The following there's a third easy alternative - some cameras have a is the method in Photoshop; other software doing the programmed setting to make a number of successive same job includes Photomat ix and HDRtist. All are quite shots at different exposures, and automatically merge similar in use and effect.
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Autumn 2016
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Twodigital imagesmergedautomatically in post-processing,as describedbelow. Thefinal versionappearson our front cover.
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First, open the program and in the file menu select 'Automate: then 'Merge to HDR~It will then ask you which image files you wish to merge; open these images (they will appear as thumbnails, from which you select); click 'enter' and after maybe 10-15 seconds the final merged image should appear and fill your screen. (You can use either raw or jpeg files, but note that in Photoshop they will be in 32-bit format and for further manipulation you may need to convert them to 8- or 16-bit). Having done so, you can fine-tune the finished image.
And for moving subjects? The above, of course, can only be used on static subjects, since the three or five individual shots are taken one after another. If something in your scene is moving, your camera may allow you to take just one shot, from which it will change the effective ISOrating (not the shutter speed as before) by amplifying the successive sensor images as it savesthem. You then merge the resulting three or five image files on your computer just as described above.
As describedin the text opposite,the two images (of five) on the far left wereopened in Photoshop,then the windows in the darker image selectedand dropped into the lighter one. Thisis the final result. Thewindows themselvesare of interest: they weremade in 1948by the famous glassblowerAlfred Manessier.
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The Best of Both Worlds A variety of so-called historic or'alternative' printing processes can be adapted to use, not a conventional film negative, but a same-size digital negative printed on a suitable transparent base. Ken Keen FRPSexplains his approach to this technique.
he age of digital photography has brought with it the possibility of producing an art print limited only by your own imaginative ability. I am not referring to Photoshop or any other 'Digital Wonder' - I mean using just your hands and a little creativity to make a unique handcrafted Image. To do this one requires only a suitable digital inkjet negative. Throughout the whole procedure, including the making of a print, no darkroom is required. Any convenient room in the home will serve,even the garden on a fine day. With the negative in contact with a sheet of art paper which has been coated with an ultra-violet light-sensitive solution, a beautiful print can be made in daylight. There are many historic/alternative printing processes from which you can choose, for example salted paper prints, Cyanotype-Rex, platinum, palladium, Van Dyke, gum bichromate and many others. Most processes can be toned with all manner of things: I am currently using green tea (no milk or sugar!) to tone cyanotype prints ... it's called art. Examplesof typical processesare shown here. They are of architectural subjects, but in fact almost any genre of photography can work equally well.
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The salted paper process On a conventional ink-jet printer, using any widely available film base, make a digital negative with a density range to suit your printing process of choice. Paper
Select an Art Paperof about 300gsm weight. Try to avoid touching the surface to be coated with the fingers, and tear or cut to a size a little larger than the negative. I use Fabriano Artistico, Arches Platine and Cot 320. Different papers can give different effects and colours. It is worth experimenting. Sizing
Add 1½ gm of gelatin to about 10ml of distilled or purified water and leave to soak for about fifteen minutes. Makeup to 100ml with water at 45C. When the gelatin has completely dissolved, try to maintain the temperature and brush coat the face side of the paper using a Hake brush (one with no metal parts). Dry with a hair drier or leave overnight. Not all papers require this additional sizing.
Twosalt prints made using the proceduredescribedin the box text: at left 'ANobleSetting,Winchester:and right 'Compassionin Durham Cathedral:
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Autumn 2016
DoreAbbey,Herefordshirethe Ambulatory. A Kallitypeferridsilver salt print.
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Salting Add 20gm of salt (ammonium chloride or sodium chloride, or sea salt) to 1 litre of cold tap water in a tray. Soak the paper in the tray for about 5 minutes and hang to dry overnight.
Fixing and final wash To 11 of cold tap water add S0gm (crystals) or 36gm (anhydrous) sodium thiosulphate, and 4gm sodium carbonate. Fix the print in this for at least five minutes, and wash in running water for at least 30 minutes.
Coating To 50ml of distilled or purified water add 1Sgm of silver nitrate. To another 50ml of distilled or purified water add Sgm of citric acid. When both have fully dissolved, slowly add the citric acid solution to the silver nitrate. Store in a brown glass bottle and let stand overnight. Mark the paper area to be coated, then brush coat the surface using a Hake brush and dry with a hair drier. Dry thoroughly in a dark place for about an hour; when dry the paper will be sensitive to UV light.
The Cyanotype-Rex process
Exposure and first wash Expose the paper with the negative (in a contact frame or under a sheet of glass) to a UV light source, either the sun or a mercury vapour lamp, until the picture looks a little darker than required, to allow for bleaching in the fixer. The negative caQ be taped at one end to the paper to allow it to be lifted to check the appearance. Then wash for a few minutes in running water.
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A variant of the above, which gives a print deep bluegrey in colour, is the CyanQtype-Rex process. The first steps are identical; but here the sized and dried paper is coated with a solution of ferric oxalate and oxalic acid - 20gm ferric oxalate in 50ml distilled or purified water, and 12gm oxalic acid in 50ml water. When both are dissolved, add the latter to the ferric oxalate. The paper is coated, dried and exposed as before: expose until faint detail is visible in the highlights. It is then developed in an 8% solution of potassium ferricyanide. No fixing is required, just a gentle wash until the water runs clear.
Contact by e-mail: ken.keen.333@btinternet.com or telephone:01753886 036.
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Pictures at An exhibition by Mike Trendell FRPSheld In Norwichthis summer displayed SOpicturesillustrating 7000 Yearsof Art in our EnglishParishChurches.He describessome of them here.
rt in our English Parish churches can be seen in various forms, such as memorials, carvings in wood and stone, stained glass, paintings on wood and wall paintings. Much of it is of national importance and it is vital that it be preserved for future generations. The art that can still be seen today spans a long period of time, some 1,000 years, from the Saxons to the 20th century. This art is considered by many to be of greater significance than any elsewhere in Europe. One of the really interesting features of the subject is that wonderful examples of church art can be seen in small churches tucked away in the countryside, as well as in large well known buildings.
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Making the images Photogra¡phing these examples of church art has taken me several
St Mary and St David at Kllpeckin Herefordshireis an outstanding Norman country church.TheOld RedSandstone carvingson the south doorway,the corbel table and the chancel arch are wonderful examplesof Norman work. Thesouth doorway has a Treeof Life tympanum, including this oriental warrior peering through the foliage.
St Faith, Little Witchingham,Norfolk (oppositepage,left) is a 14thcentury flint building. In the mid-20th century,when a plaster coveringwaschippedaway, the remainsof one of the most completeschemesof mediaevalwall painting in the country werediscovered:they include the TwelveApostles,and thesescrollpatterns with grapesand vine leaves.
St Peter and St Paul, Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Aldeburghis very much associatedwith its distinguishedresident Benjamin Britten. TheBritten memorial window pictured on the right wasdesignedby his friend John Piper;it depictsthree of the composer'sworks,TheBurningFieryFurnace,CurlewRiverand TheProdigalSon.
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an Exhibition
years; of the examples shown here, that of the carved Tree of Life at Kilpeck in Herefordshire was scanned from a Fuji transparency, while the others are more recent digital images. For most I use a tripod with a remote shutter release, at an aperture of fS.6 and an ISO rating of 100 or 200. I only use HORwhen there is a large highlight/shadow difference, as explained in my article in the Autumn 2010 edition of Heritage Photography. But it's possible to obtain perfectly good results with a hand-held compact camera, as with John Piper's Britten memorial window in Aldeburgh; in such cases, image stabilisation is a great help. For my Exhibition in Norwich I made 25 mounted prints on Permajet Oyster A3 paper, with two A4 photographs on each.
The church of St Helen'sat Ranworth in Norfolk (right) is famousfor its 75th centuryrood screen.HereSt Michaelstridesin debonairfashionamid the serpent'scoils.
All Saints, Faringdon,Oxfordshire(belowright) overlooksthe ThamesValley.Much of the building is Norman,including this 72th centurywrought iron work on the south door.
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Members' Showcase 2016 Promising to be a notable event in our calendar, the inaugural Members' Showcase meeting, previously known as our Annual Conference, was held in Leatherhead on 8th October. Keith Evans here summarises the seven speakers' presentations . .--.:,r:i'T.'!'"-.------,........--,,..,.,.,.....,..,,--..,..,,.,.,,.-, wil Owen ARPS,an archaeological photographer in Cambridge and a regular speaker at past Group Conferences, described in his talk Frontiers the way in which societies in different eras and places viewed their'territories~ Marked territorial boundaries are not found in the Stone Age landscape, though certain areas of land may have been considered private, as now in parts of Australia. Later, markers such as boulders painted with rock art appear, such as those of the Mapuche culture in Chile's Aconcagua valley: their function is paralleled by the 20th century village signs in Britain, proudly claiming a 'village societi In contrast, around 1350BCEgypt's pharaoh Akhenaten set up precise, legally defined boundaries for his new city of Akhetaten Hadrian'sTomband bridge acrossthe river Tiberin Rome. in the Nile valley. Many centuries later, also in Egypt, the WalterBrooks. Romans and subsequently the Arabs built fortifications on the country's border with Nubia - the first for defence, 4/3 mirrorless cameras. Maurilio explained that although the second to control trade. Equally varied responses to all were printed on this matt-surfaced art paper, he used Epson's photo black and two 'grey' inks, but not the matt 'foreigners' are found in 21st century societies. A second regular presenter, Dr Mike Sasse,then described black alternative usually recommended. Following lunch, Eric Houlder LRPSgave his talk Other and illustrated the heritage of Northamptonshire, County of Squiresand Spires- from notable 'great houses' such as Peoples' Graves. He first showed typical site-recording Kirby Hall and Castle Ashby, to its distinctive ironstone work by our earliest 'antiquarian' photographers such as Sir Flinders Petrie, T.E.Lawrence ('of Arabia') and the villages and network of 18th-19th century canals. There followed a brief presentation by our immediate American Alison Frantz, who developed and taught many of the principles of such photography still important past chairman, R. Keith Evans, on the forthcoming Monuments Project, a four-year venture by Art.UK and the today. Eric'sown pictures, illustrating skeletons and grave Public Monuments and Sculptures Association for which finds over the past 50 years, utilised a variety of cameras, volunteers are to be invited to photograph and record from a 1940 folding Kodak lnstamatic and 1950s Coronet some 100,000 such structures throughout Britain. As one Viscount to a succession of 35mm Minoltas. Electronic of the first photographers for this project, Keith showed flash enabled him to record skeletal remains in burial us some examples of the pictures he has been asked by grounds of one-time priories and monasteries, and in Civil War battlefield burials. Art.UK to make of monuments in west Kent. Walter Brooks'talk Endof Days depicted another aspect of burials, in this case the wide variety of ways in which Printing your architectural images The next speaker was Maurilio Teso ARPS,whose talk societies have treated the dead. On the island of Jersey, Imageson TexturedArt Paperwas illustrated by some fine for example, he photographed a large 'passage grave' for a family of six, dating from 2500BC. He showed beehive monochrome prints of architectural interest and a further selection of land- and seascapes, all delicately printed tombs, the domed roof of one of which in Mycenae, on Hahnemuhle inkjet art paper. The originals included dating from 1250BC,was for a thousand years the world's both film negatives made on Hasselblad and Rolleiflex largest; Etruscan domed tombs and richly decorated cameras, and more recent digital images from DSLRand street tombs abound in Cerveteri; and from Rome we saw the remarkable 36m high pyramidal tomb of CaiusCestius (188(} and 'Hadrian's Tomb' of 135AD. Our final presentation, by David Bryson, covered the topics of ArtDeco buildings-primarily in Cardiff, Derby and Leicester - and the importance of recording them before they are destroyed or converted ; and Beforethe Barrage,a photographic tour of the areas of Cardiff which were lost when construction of the Cardiff Bay Barrage began in 1994. His pictures in infra-red monochrome brought back memories of the city's vast coal-shipping facilities, as well as some notable buildings. David's message,'take pictures now - these may be the monuments of tomorrow; is well CastleAshby,Northants - one of the county'sgreat houses. worth remembering. Dr Mike Sasse.
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