Picturing the Past - Photography and Archaeology

at Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo (map)
on Saturday 6th June 2009

The story of archaeological photography with Eric Houlder, who has been photographing archaeology since 1957 and worked on many sites, including Sutton Hoo in the sixties with Rupert Bruce-Mitford & Paul Ashbee.

Archaeologists have been using photography to record their work for a century and a half, but it is only in the last sixty years that the subject has been divided into a series of specialist disciplines. This day school is aimed particularly at interested members of the general public, but amateur and professional archaeologists and amateur photographers will find it equally fascinating and useful. It will be approached from the archaeological perspective, with a minimum of technicalities, concentrating always upon the finished pictures. As befits the location, there will be some discussion of the historiography of photography at Sutton Hoo, from Basil Brown onwards.

Eric Houlder LRPS, MIfL, has been photographing archaeology since 1957, from the days of glass plates to digital imaging. Through what he describes as a series of accidents he has been fortunate to meet and sometimes work with many of the great British archaeologists of the past half century. From one of Dr Bruce-Mitford & Paul Ashbee’s supervisors on the ‘60s dig at Sutton Hoo, to his retirement as Site Photographer to the Wood Hall Archaeological Trust, via flying with Derrick Riley during the hot summers of the ‘70s, and photographing the Towton Battlefield skeletons, his work has been at the forefront of archaeological imaging. An accomplished speaker, he now travels throughout the country such is the demand for his illustrated talks.

Conlon, V.M., Camera Techniques in Archaeology (London 1973)
Cookson, M.B., “Photography in Archaeology” The Archaeological Newsletter (June, July, August, September 1951)
Cookson, M.B., Photography for Archaeologists (London 1954)
Deuel , L. ,Flights into Yesterday (Aylesbury 1969)
Dorrell, P.G., Photography in Archaeology and Conservation (Cambridge 1989, 1994)
Frantz, A., “Truth before Beauty or the Incompleat Photographer”, Archaeology (USA), Winter 1950
Matthews, S.K., Photography in Archaeology & Art (London 1968)
Nassau, W.E., Practical Photography for the Field Archaeologist (Waterloo, Ontario 1976)
Simmons, H.C., Archaeological Photography (London 1969)
Szegedy-Maszak, A., “Portrait of a Purist: Alison Frantz at 91”, Archaeology (January/February 1995)

Bookings

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Wuffing Education,
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