California Settlers Reference Sources Historical Object Photography (Documents, Tombstones, ...) | About/Contact |
Document PhotographySee Document and Object Photo Page - Using a Copy Stand.
Tombstone PhotographyGeneral GuidesCamera Settings: The Association For Gravestone Studies recommends using a 35 mm SLR that is outfitted with either a 50-55mm lens or a wide angle 35mm lens for crowded areas. Smaller lenses will distort the straight lines in the image. Color film with an ASA of 200 shot at 1/250th of a second should yield a good result. Black and white Tri-x film is a also good choice.
Digital Cameras:
Lighting:
Guidelines on the Web Tips for photographing Gravestones: Photography Guide at the British War Memorial Project Tips for Taking Great Cemetery Pictures at About.com Photographic Guide at the Australian War Graves Photographic Archive Threads on ROOTS-L mailing lists: A non-harmful way to photograph tombstones
Other Links: Tombstone Transcription Project. Tombstone Images and Articles (Tombstone Rubbings) at RootDig.com
Graveyard Preservation
- Sources of technical information and assistance on the subject of graveyard and tombstone preservation. Photographing tombstones: Equipment and Techniques (Technical leaflet #92 - American Association for State and Local History - AASLH), 1977, Mary-Ellen Jones of the Bancroft Library, University of California at Berkeley. Though many of its suggestions for particular kinds of equipment are now out of date, the leaflet addresses basic principles and questions of methodology in useful ways.
"Photographing Historical Collections: Equipment, Methods and bibliography", Articles and Reports Baker, F. Joanne and Farber, Daniel, Recording Cemetery Data, The Association for Gravestone Studies, Greenfield, Mass., 1986. Sterling, John E., Gravestone Database Standard, Association for Gravestone Studies, Greenfield, Mass., 1995. Books Mytum, Harold, Recording and Analyzing Graveyards, Practical Handbook in Archaeology 15, Council for British Archaeology, in association with English Heritage, Walmgate, York, United Kingdom, 2000.
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last updated 16 Apr 2005