![\"\"](\"http:\/\/library.brown.edu\/dps\/curio\/wp-content\/uploads\/Napoleon-Death-Mask.jpg\" "\\"Napoleon-Death-Mask\\"")
<\/a><\/p>\nTwo years before this shoot, I actually photographed a portrait of Napoleon; an oil painting by Vernet in a gold-colored frame with the familiar bee (a symbol of immortality and resurrection) carved onto the front. It’s a part of the William Henry Hoffman Collection on Napoleon I <\/a> and it’s absolutely stunning. Actually, the entire collection (of approximately 600 items) is fascinating, so I was excited when I was called over to look at an object that needed digitization. I was a little surprised to find it was not exactly a portrait of Napoleon; it was a plaster cast of his death mask<\/a>. The request had come internally; we have a series of talks on our Special Collections at Brown, and this image was to help publicize and showcase a talk on the mask<\/a>, given by Peter Harrington, curator of the Anne S.K. Brown Military Collection.<\/p>\n I had to bring it back to my studio at DPS to photograph, as I needed better light than I could get in the room the mask is stored in. I set everything up before bringing the mask out of its box; I was using hot lights, and the less exposure the mask has to the heat and drying nature of the lights, the better. Using a stack of books about the same size and shape of the mask, I set up foam to cushion it on a low table, set up lights equidistant and at the same angle to the object, and utilized the horizontal arm of our tripod so that I could shoot straight down onto the object. I used a color checker card to make sure that my white balance and exposure was correct, I tripled-checked the depth of field and focus, and then was ready to go.<\/p>\n As is often the case when dealing with unique objects, the setup took much longer than the actual photography. I replaced the books very carefully with the mask, took approximately 10 shots at slightly different exposures and focuses at three different angles. I ended up with a high resolution photograph of the death mask, and a great response when people asked me what I was bringing around the library in a box.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While the bulk of my work involves the digitization of two-dimensional documents, or straightforward photographs of pages from books, I also photograph other types of items – like the 360 degree photography, and the interiors that I have posted about. … Continue reading