Imaging | c u r i o

Studio on the go

July 8, 2013 by lelgin | 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.

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.

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

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.

Photographing Clara

May 31, 2013 by lelgin | Comments Off on Photographing Clara

As a followup to last week’s post about John Hay, I thought it would be a good time to discuss photographing the portrait of Clara Stone Hay. The wife of Brown alumnus John Hay, Clara Stone Hay’s portrait hangs in the John Hay Library, where the university’s special collections are housed. I was charged to photograph the portrait for the 2010 edition of Special Collections of the Brown University Library: A History and Guide.

The John Hay Library, home to many of Brown’s Special Collections.

Photographing the portrait was no easy feat. The painting had to be photographed in place; it is too large and too heavy to move for photography. This made controlling many aspects of the lighting incredibly difficult. The painting is done in oils, which have a reflectance that can range anywhere from a slight slimmer to a strong glare. Additionally, the painting is behind glass – and decidedly not the anti-glare variety. Both these obstacles can be dealt with through careful placement of the lighting, including adjusting the angle and directionality of the lights to minimize reflections. However, this painting is in a marble hallway, with windows and reflective surfaces at every turn. While no windows shine directly onto the painting, the light that they bring into the hallway not only interferes with the lights I had brought to illuminate the painting, but they also create hot spots and highlights on the work itself. The other paintings and objects in the hallway also create their own reflections in the glass.

The hallway in the John Hay Library where the portrait of Clara Stone Hay was photographed. Clara’s portrait is top right.

A tilt-shift lens, showing the shift to the right.

I’m a big believer in preempting as many imaging issues as possible during the actual capture. Because I had scouted this painting beforehand, I knew about the glass and the lighting issue. The primary challenge with the painting being behind glass is that there’s no way to photograph the painting straight on, without myself or the camera (or both) being directly reflected in the image. I brought in my tilt-shift lens (also called perspective control, described here) so that I could photograph the painting from the side.

The t-s lens allows the photographer to photograph an object from the side, above, or below, with keeping the lens parallel to the object (otherwise, we would see great distortion). This is called shift: the lens and film plane/digital sensor are parallel to the object and to each other, but the image circle shifts within the camera, allowing you to capture a different area of the scene than that which is directly in front of you.

I took multiple shots with the tilt-shift lens, bracketing for exposure. I was able to capture a faithful reproduction of the painting, which required very little processing. I had to fix some minor distortion on the right side of the frame – an artifact of the lens not being 100% parallel with the painting. I also had to reduce some of the reflections on the painting which were unavoidable – the painting opposite that of Clara could not be moved, and could not be removed during capture. The progress of these changes and the final version are shown below.

The stages of processing the Clara Stone Hay portrait.

From Brown and Back Again

May 24, 2013 by btylr | Comments Off on From Brown and Back Again

On June 1, 2013, Brown’s John Hay Library — built in 1910 and now home to the Library’s special collections — will close its doors for a major renovation of the first floor. (Updates on the project can be followed on the John Hay Library Renovation website and blog.) Many of the materials that Digital Production Services regularly captures, especially those from signature collections, are housed at “the Hay,” named after the Brown alumnus (1838–1905).

Photograph of John Hay, taken at the time of his marriage to Clara Stone (1874) by an unknown photographer.

Sargent's portrait of Hay, on cover of new 2013 biography

Sargent’s portrait of Hay (detail), featured on the cover of a newly published biography.

Earlier this month, a substantial new biography of John Hay was published by Simon & Schuster (see a recent review from the New York Times). Several images featured in the book were captured by Digital Production Services, including the John Singer Sargent (1856–1925) portrait used for the book’s cover, a photograph of a young John Hay, and a portrait of his wife, Clara Stone Hay.

Clara Stone Hay by Anders Zorn (1860–1920); gift of Stuart Symington.

Apart from his connections to Brown, Hay was Abraham Lincoln’s secretary and a diplomat under Theodore Roosevelt. The Library’s online exhibit from 2008, “John Hay’s Lincoln and Lincoln’s John Hay,” curated by American Historical Collections Librarian Holly Snyder, highlights the Hay-Lincoln connection by way of additional original documents — now stored at the Hay.

Garibaldi Returns

April 26, 2013 by btylr | Comments Off on Garibaldi Returns

: Garibaldi scroll (side 1)

In late-summer 2007, the Brown University Library contracted with Boston Photo to photograph both sides of a unique oversize panorama scroll depicting the life of Garibaldi. After the initial capture files were processed and digitally merged together by Digital Production Services staff in the Library, they were used to develop a website about the panorama. The process of reconstituting the panorama’s narrative scenes from the initial set of discrete digital photographs is described below:

Example from the end of side 2: Yellow line represents edges of initial digital files, which were then merged together in order to visually preserve the narrative continuity of scenes.

Example from the (supplementary) end of side 2: Yellow line represents edges of initial capture files (which included on average .5–1′ of overlap). Files were then digitally merged together in order to visually preserve the continuity of narrative scenes.

The sheer dimensions of the Garibaldi panorama — 4.75′ tall and 260′ wide on each side — presented unique digitization challenges. Boston Photo Imaging, a digital imaging company, was contracted to capture digital images of the panorama as it was unrolled across a custom-built wooden platform. Using a vertically mounted Better Light 4″ x 5″ digital scan back, capturing both sides of the panorama took three days and resulted in 91 digital image files, each file ~244 MB and representing ~6.5′ of horizontal width (including on average .5-1′ of overlap, in order to facilitate subsequent image merging). The scan back captured 300 dpi RGB TIF files; given the height of the device this resulted in an effective real-world resolution of ~137 dpi at the actual size of the panorama.

Because scenes within the panorama’s visual narrative do not correspond to the uniform width used in the capture process, sets of capture files were digitally merged together five at a time by the Brown Library’s Center for Digital Initiatives [now Digital Production Services] staff, at full capture resolution within Photoshop CS3/v10, and then individual scenes were isolated and saved from these roughly 30-feet merged sections. A continuous image of each side of the panorama was produced by subsequently merging sequences of these five-section composites at a reduced resolution. As part of this process the plastic-over-board background initially visible along the top and bottom edges was digitally removed, and each merged group of five was slightly rotated in order to compensate for some inevitable alignment drift produced during the unrolling process. Tonal levels and saturation values were slightly adjusted, and files were moderately sharpened for full-resolution and reduced-resolution delivery sizes. [Read more from “Behind the Scenes”]

In early 2013, the Center for Digital Scholarship and its student employees substantially upgraded the Web presentation of the Garibaldi scroll. In particular, one can now view the scroll’s narrative scenes directly alongside their accompanying descriptive texts. Flash-based animated views of the scroll are also still available on the site, which allow click-throughs into zoomable views of each narrative scene.

In addition to the redesigned website, the scroll has also been (briefly) mentioned in a new book from MIT Press, Illusions in Motion by Erkki Huhtamo, and has been featured as a teaching tool in the Patrick Ma Digital Scholarship Lab, by way of Massimo Riva’s Fall 2012 course on Garibaldi and the Risorgimento.

Ninety degrees of separation

March 22, 2013 by lelgin | 1 Comment

When I joined Digital Production Services as a photographer in 2008, one of my first projects was a 15th century bible in the collection of the Providence Public Library. The PPL has a significant Special Collections department, and this bible, Biblicum memoiriale emblematicum, is just one of “over 40,000 books, manuscripts, pamphlets, ephemera, newspapers, maps, broadsides, art, and artifacts, representing over four thousand years of human history and culture.” (PPL website) This relatively small (10.5 x 7.6 cm) bible is handwritten, and many sections are composed of paneled illustrations as if it were an early graphic novel format.

The first step in photographing any rare or fragile material is to consult Preservation. My colleague and I immediately brought the book to our preservation specialist to determine both the best overall handling procedures, as well as any shooting restrictions. The book itself was in remarkably good condition; the main caveat was that the book should not be opened more than 90˚ to preserve the spine. We would have to build a foam structure to support the book and ensure that at no time was there any stress on the spine or the pages.

We also had to take into consideration the specific digitization guidelines provided by the institution that would eventually house the digital version of the bible. The images were headed for the Digital Scriptorium, an online image database for medieval and renaissance manuscripts. Each image required a color target (which we include in every image, but usually crop out for display versions), a grey background, and full-spread views rather than page-by-page views. This was actually helpful for us, since given the handling restrictions on the book, we had to shoot full spreads.

My colleague and I decided it would be best to photograph the object using our glass book cradle. Normally, this cradle is used to photograph one page at a time; it holds the book open to a given page, pressed flat against the glass, and supported underneath by a platform that can be raised or lowered to accommodate different thicknesses. In this case, however, we were using the cradle to house the foam supports for the bible, and to very gently hold the book open; no pressure was put on the bible at all. My first task was to build the foam support, as the entire object needed to be surrounded by protective foam. I cut various strips of foam from larger sheets to reinforce the spine as it rested on the book cradle platform. Next, I cut more strips that I folded and secured with tape to support the back and front of the book, with special attention paid to the areas just beyond the spine. The image below illustrates the foam structure, with a large foam block, stacks of foam and other objects surrounding the support for the grey cloth background to rest on.

The next issue that I quickly ran into was that while the book would stay open with very little pressure, it was impossible to keep it open to a given page. To keep the book open would have required using pressure on the book, something that was out of the question in this case. To solve this problem, I created a system where I could place a piece of transparent thread across a page of the book to carefully hold the page in place. I brought in the clear thread, and taped each end to a pencil. I found some large binder clips, which I attached to the book cradle both above and below the book (rather far away so that the thread would not dig into the page). I put each pencil through the metal clip of the binder clip, rotated the pencils to achieve the proper tension, and then locked the clips into place. This allowed me to hold each spread open without damaging the book or interfering with its legibility.

Once I knew I could support the book and keep it open to each spread, all I had to do was ensure that the lighting was as even as possible (even into the gutter), and that my focus level was about one-third of the way into the book, so that the focus would be consistent across the pages. Below is an example of the final product; a page from Exodus. You can view the entire book at the Digital Scriptorium.

Weaving Lives, Scanning Slides

February 18, 2013 by Jacquelyn Harris | 5 Comments

Santa Maria, Guatemala

Girl weaving on backstrap loom
San Antonio Aguas Calientes, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala

Picturesque landscapes, village life, and intricate hand-woven textiles are predominant features of the Margot Blum Schevill Collection recently donated to the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University. Schevill began collecting during her many trips to Guatemala as an anthropology graduate student in the 1970s. Her efforts culminated in a collection of over 200 textile pieces, thousands of images, and boxes of correspondence that represent her study of and appreciation for Guatemalan weaving practices, the symbolism of the vivid colors and patterns, and the cultural significance of traditional dress or traje.

In addition to being a graduate student in the Public Humanities Program here at Brown, I also work as a student employee scanning archival materials for Digital Production Services. Two of my peers at the Brown Center for Public Humanities, Anna Ghublikian and Maria Quintero, have been cataloging the Schevill collection for over a year now. Last year, Anna and Maria’s work aligned with an undergraduate student project that partnered with a Maya-Guatemalan weaving collective in nearby New Bedford, Massachusetts. The weavers in the collective – called Oxib’ B’atz (Three Threads in the K’iche language) – use traditional back-strap looms to weave textiles like those in Schevill collection. These traditional weaving practices not only produce beautiful works, they also help the Maya community retain aspects of its cultural identity in its new home in New Bedford.

This fall, Maria and Anna proposed an expansion of the initial project, which would display Oxib’ B’atz works with pieces from the Schevill collection. Their proposal, taken on as a student project and supported by much collaboration, has resulted in a temporary installation currently on view at the New Bedford Whaling Museum. The exhibit Weaving Stories, Weaving Lives: Maya Textiles from Guatemala and New Bedford displays pieces of masterful weaving alongside images from the Schevill collection. On Saturday, March 2nd, at 2:00 p.m., visitors to the museum will be able to see a demonstration by local Maya weavers using the back-strap loom to create beautiful textiles. Additional museum programming includes Maya textile-related crafts and children’s activities during School Vacation Week, and other programs through April 7.

Santa Maria, Guatemala

In my role as a Public Humanities student, I have been working with the exhibit team to write guide text and assist with publicity. Meanwhile, in my position as a scanning assistant, I have been scanning hundreds of slides from the Schevill Collection. This collection, once fully digitized and cataloged, will be available through the Haffenreffer Museum, as well as ingested into the Brown Digital Repository. Slide scanning has been a departure from the typical flatbed scanning I had been performing. I learned the nuances of cleaning the slides with a static-free cloth and compressed air, how to orient the slides in the automatic slide feeder, and how to make use of Nikon SuperCoolScan5000 settings to save the files with identifying accession numbers. My hands-on experience with the slides has given me greater appreciation for the “Weaving Stories, Weaving Lives” project, and enough familiarity with the collection to help select some of the images I scanned for the exhibition, which I also helped to install before the official opening on March 2.

Further information on Margot Schevill’s work with ethnographic costume and textiles from Middle America and the Central Andes of South America can be found in the electronic copy of her book Costume as Communication.

– Jacquelyn Harris ‘13

detail of textile created in San Mateo Ixtatán, Huehuetenango, Guatemala

Illuminating Postcards

February 13, 2013 by lelgin | 2 Comments

While I generally work with objects and texts from Brown’s Special Collections, I also work with images for the instructional image collection with Karen Bouchard, the Scholarly Resources Librarian for Art and Architecture (she has a Twitter feed for the Brown Imaging Blog). These are images scanned for faculty members (primarily in History of Art and Architecture and Visual Art). For this project, I was digitizing postcards in the personal collection of Brown alumnus Seth Cohen, lent to Professor Dietrich Neumann for use in his lectures. These postcards – representing a range of locations and time periods – look at first like ordinary postcards, but illuminate in specific areas in the card when backlit. Sometimes, the backlighting shines through windows and doors in a bright, copper color; other times, the light brings forth a part of the image unseen when viewing normally.

The following are two animations of illuminated postcards: they start with the postcard lit normally, then move to two different strengths of backlight.

While it’s relatively easy to view one of these postcards – holding them up to a window or to a bright indoor light does the trick – capturing that in a photograph is much more challenging. After some trial and error, I devised a simple system to backlight the postcards with a light strong enough to show the layers of information, while still providing enough ambient light to read the information on the front of the card. I set up our Leaf Aptus II-12 digital back on its medium format camera, attached it to a tripod set to shoot straight down, and did tethered capturing into Capture One (the software we use to capture using our Leaf digital back). I used two Canon 580EXII flash units; one mounted on the hot shoe of the camera, and one functioning as a synched flash on the floor with a Gary Fong Lightsphere diffuser. I used an acrylic box to lay the postcards on, and put that on some boxes so that there would be some room between the flash on the floor and the postcards. I bounced the flash on the camera off the ceiling, so that it would provide a diffused ambient light that would neither overpower the postcards, nor cancel out the backlighting.

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