Digital Production Services Homepage Brown University Library Homepage Brown University Homepage

c u r i o

Imaging rare, unusual, and intriguing objects at the Brown University Library

Monthly Archives: July 2013

Total Eclipse of the Sun

July 17, 2013 by | Comments Off on Total Eclipse of the Sun

118798497678125

The solar eclipse expedition team readies equipment on the steps of the Ladd Observatory before departing to Sweden

Charles H. Smiley was a professor of Astronomy and director of Ladd Observatory at Brown University from 1938 -70. During his career, he led fourteen solar eclipse expeditions to far flung locations around the world. Many of these expeditions are documented in scrapbooks and can be viewed in the Brown Digital Repository. The scrapbooks serve as part astronomical log recording scientific data, part photo album, and part travelogue. The Smileys, along with their good friends and colleagues, the Reeds, were fastidious in their collecting of materials for inclusion in the scrapbooks. Everything from cocktail receipts to diplomatic correspondence were carefully pasted into place.

Processing the page images from the scrapbook labeled Sweden was of particular interest to me, having lived for a time in Västergötland myself. The scrapbook documents an astronomical expedition to record the total eclipse of the sun on June 30, 1954.  Brown University sent teams to Canada, Pakistan, and Sweden to record the eclipse. An Eastman Kodak executive and two Brown students made up the Canadian team. Charles H. Smiley traveled to Pakistan with Brown Grad student Lt. Somachai Chansuvan, while Smiley’s wife Margaret, along with Mary Quirk ’22, Constance Herlihy Reed ’34, and Donald S. Reed traveled to Sweden, the key point for observations. The scrapbook tells the chronological tale of the trip through ephemera, photographs, postcards, Swedish and American newspaper clippings, letters, and reports on the expedition, all providing a portrait of mid-century travel to Sweden.

118798507715625

Kungsportsplatsen, Gothenburg

1187985258765625The expedition team arrived in Gothenburg on May 21st, where they spent some time sightseeing. In early June, the party departed from their lodgings at The Place Hotel, after loading all matter of astronomical equipment onto the roof of a red VW bus, and traveled inland to Småland. The group stayed at Sunds Herrgard, a lake country estate, and searched for the best site to observe the eclipse. Once the site, in a nearby rye field, was decided upon, local farmers helped to construct a cement pier and platform on which to mount the photo-theodolite

1187986128640625

Constance Reed using the photo-theodolite

(an optical tracking instrument consisting of a camera and theodolite a singletripod). An emergency trip to Jönköping was made for parts when it was discovered that the theodolite had sustained damage during the transatlantic crossing. Sadly, on June 30th bands of clouds crossed the blue skies and the team were unable to capture any images of the eclipse. Mrs. Smiley’s cablegram to the public relations director at Brown summed up the expedition’s observations in one word…”clouds”. The islands of Öland and Gotland turned out to be the best Swedish observation points. For the Canadian team, and back in Providence, the whole event was hidden under cloud cover. All was not lost, however; Charles Smiley’s cablegram from Pakistan cheerfully read “Complete success. Cloudless skies. Photos to be developed soon. Prime Minister Present.”

Once the eclipse was over, the Swedish group once again became tourists and headed to Stockholm and environs, visiting Gamla Stan, glass blowing facilities, medieval castles, the open air museum Skansen, and the  Saltsjöbaden Observatory, naturligtvis.

1187986424281250

Skansen Museum & Zoo, Stockholm

1187986498312500

Saltsjöbaden Observatory

Studio on the go

July 8, 2013 by | Comments Off on Studio on the go

The library Annex: known for housing a vast collection of books not stored in our on-campus libraries, it's also home to an art vault for Brown's portrait collection

The library Annex: known for housing a vast collection of books not stored in our on-campus libraries, it’s also home to an art vault for Brown’s portrait collection.

During the slower summer months, DPS has the time to turn its attention towards important projects that may not be as time-sensitive as work done during the academic year, but remain a vital part of the work of digitizing the collections of both the University Library and the larger institution. Many of these projects involve on-site work, where my colleague Ben and I travel to locations on and off campus to photograph rare and oversize objects.

One undertaking this summer has been work for University Curator and Senior Lecturer Robert Emlen, who has identified a number of paintings that require photography. Many of the works have been conserved, some have not been previously digitized, and several had been captured with older (c. 2003) digital technology.

Some of these paintings are part of the Rush C. Hawkins Collection, housed in the Annmary Brown Memorial. The majority of the works are from the Brown Portrait Collection, made up of paintings located all across the Brown campus. There are also a number of paintings stored at the library Annex, home to many volumes not currently stored on campus.

In order to capture these works as best as possible, we have a traveling setup that we bring with us. This includes our digital back, mounted on a medium format SLR, tripod, hot-shoe level, x-rite color checker card, tungsten light set with light stands and umbrellas, and a MacBook Pro with Capture One installed for tethered shooting. We also bring white foam core reflectors to even out lighting, and black foam core to reduce any unwanted light (which gives a nasty glare off oil paint). Below is a setup from a shoot in the Annex, where you can see most of this equipment brought into play.

shoot2

Here’s the full setup, with the tethered laptop.

Testing this shot with the color checker card and hot shoe level.

Testing this shot with the color checker card and hot shoe level. We’re purposely photographing the painting on its side to make the most of the camera’s 80MP sensor (without having to rotate the camera) as well as to ensure as even light spread across the painting as possible.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The painting we are photographing above is a portrait of Barnaby Keeney, the 12th president of the university. This is the final product:

Keeney, Barnaby Conrad (1914-1980) Artist: Feldman, Walter Portrait Date: 1961 Medium: oil on canvas Dimensions: 4 Framed Dimensions: Brown Portrait Number: 201

Keeney, Barnaby Conrad (1914-1980); Artist: Feldman, Walter; Portrait Date: 1961; Medium: oil on canvas; Brown Portrait Number: 201

The portrait was painted in 1961 by Walter Feldman (himself a Brown institution, now Professor Emeritus of Art); an interview with Professor Feldman for a celebration of BREATHTAKEN, a new collaborative publication released in 2012, can be found here.