The Camera as a Divining Rod

            I found this description on a site, Worksongs (now 404) by Andrew Emond.

I had just been talking to my nephew yesterday about that feeling of talking photographs without looking at every detail not relevant to the photograph. While I’m photographing, my mind goes into a different place. I’m seeing everything as light, shadow, angles, clear versus blurred, and so on. I don’t catch the words on a gravestone but I see that they will (or won’t) turn out clearly enough to read in the photograph. I walk around to find the angle that catches the mood, without taking the time to decide what the mood actually is. At least not in words.

It is a different connection to your surroundings when you look at everything a little distanced and yet more connected in other ways. I liked the analogy of the camera as a divining rod. So I have reposted Andrew’s description, as a quote. He has another site: Andrew Emond.

Worksongs Photography

Name : Andrew Emond
Location : Toronto / Montreal

Intent : Worksongs is basically the end result of me trying to gain a better, more direct connection with my immediate surroundings. I look at the camera as a sort of divining rod. It helps lead me to things I wouldn’t normally consider examining or give much thought to, like industrial processes or the way communities are evolving. I’m particularly interested in how elements of the old world are fitting in with the modern world, or in some cases aren’t fitting in at all — essentially where our society has come from and the directions we might be headed.

The Drama and Dilemmas of Posting Photographs Online

            I did not know, or really think about, all the drama with the technology of adding images to a website. I started by adding several photographs I had taken from one location. Then I thought it would be a good idea to add a watermark. Not so much about copyrights and theft but to at least give my name and website link so people could know I took the photo and find more of my photos. Somewhat keeping credit on the photo but also to build traffic and maybe in some other year consider selling photos or making a calendar or related idea/ plan.

But, watermarking was just the start of it all. I did figure that out. I bought software which I can figure out and I have gotten through one small batch of images as a test of my competence.

Then I realized my site is loading very slowly and sometimes not even loading at all. I thought, just bad luck today. Then I thought, well my connection just isn’t that great and maybe I really should change ISPs (Internet service providers) again. Then… it clicked in my brain. My photographs are big. Not just in physical size but density too. Well, I just don’t like thumbnails and I don’t want the software creating a dozen copies of various sizes of every image I post. That seems pretty useless.

So, now I am looking at image optimization.

Still on my list of things to do with my photographs is to create a place which I can have more of them posted. I don’t want to post more than a couple of images/ photos with each post here. The best few should be enough. Most people aren’t likely to care about all the same little things I care about when I look at the old places. Every doorknob, wildflower, and bit of odd looking peeling paint probably isn’t necessary. But, they could be available elsewhere. Again, the dilemma of giant file sizes and a huge trove of images over the years. But, that can wait until I get this site sorted out. One day… well, one week or so, at a time.

Rephotography of Historical Sites

            This is a guide to rephotography which I found online a few years ago. Now the link is down and I can't find a new link for it. So I am saving some of it here.The photographs which were on the site are not working now, when I view it with the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20170824204058/http://home.onemain.com/~home_range/doc_phot/index.htm#contents">Wayback Machine</a>.

AN INTRODUCTION TO DOCUMENTARY PHOTOGRAPHY

A GUIDE AND FIELD HANDBOOK

Gerald T. Davidson

4. Rephotography of Historical Sites

Rephotography evolved into a distinct discipline of history and environmental studies during the second half of the 20th century, as old photographs were rediscovered and people began to wonder how the landscape had changed over the past several hundred years. It was exciting, but no great surprise, to see just how the man-made landscape had changed in some places of western North America. But it was a surprise to see—in a way that could be accurately documented—just how much the natural landscape had changed.

The two photographs on the cover are both of the same spot, taken almost 100 years apart in time. The location is the site of a coal mine at Red Lodge, Montana. The first shot was made early in the twentieth century, and shows a typical turn-of-the century industrial waste-land-scape. The second shot was made at the end of the century. Almost every trace of the mine is now gone. The large building has been replaced by the Senior Citizens’ Center. The railroad yards and sidings were long ago abandoned by the railway; the green in the foreground is an athletic practice field. About the only landmark that can be recognized in both photographs—apart from the distant mountains—is the tiny house, just to the right of the center, almost hidden by the trees and shrubs.

A.   Uses of Historical Rephotography

History is about loss, loss of a past that can never be recovered.  However the past has given us many artifacts—including paintings, drawings, and photographs—that tell us something about the way things were.  The vanishing way of life of the native peoples of North America was among the first applications of what we now call documentary photography.   Edward S. Curtis was only following in the footsteps of painters like George Catlin when he set out in the early 20th century to make hundreds of photographs of the Indian ways, as he saw them.  This may be considered an example of re-photography, where the originals were paintings and drawings.

Edward S. Curtis’ photographs can be most easily appreciated in the numerous books devoted to reproductions of his work.  The photographs are mostly in the public domain, so there have been many such books, some better than others.

In the instance of Curtis’ photographs the subjects are long gone, and only their landscape remains.   That landscape is interesting for later photographers, particularly when it contains more-or-less durable works of man, such as buildings.   Photographers can document what has been lost in the landscape, environment, and ways of life by the photography of modern subjects.

Documentary photography serves history well when it concentrates on man’s environment.   Changes in our buildings, our transportation systems, and all the artifacts around us tell much about how our customs and ways have changed.   This is particularly apt in urban landscapes, where even the building styles have a story to tell.

A very effective use of rephotography is in the application to ecology, the natural landscape, and climate change.  The disappearance of the free ranging bison is a well known part of the history of the American West.  But there have been many other, sometimes quite subtle changes in the flora and fauna of America.  Of course some of the changes in the landscape and natural vegetation could be attributed to the actions of man, through suppression of wildfires, elimination of animal species, damming of rivers, and spread of agriculture and non-native plants.   Nature also had a trick of its own.   We now know that the 19th century was subject to some wild climatic excursions, including the end of the Little Ice Age and at least one great drought at the mid century.  One fact stands out: almost everywhere in western North America there are more trees and shrubs than 150 years ago.

There are many uses uses of rephotography.  Among the most important are

  • Changes in the landscape, due to man’s activities
  • Changes in cultures, customs and ways of living
  • Changes in the environment and vegetation
  • Climate change
  • Changes in the urban landscape

One can practice rephotography in an entirely ad-hoc way, using the simplest of cameras, or one can employ all the techniques available to the photographer and to the historian.

The techniques of historical rephotography are simple to describe; but in practice they often require much labor and lucky guesswork.   Finding the general location of an old photograph may require extensive library research, to establish its date, origin, and probable location.   That may narrow the search down to a few square miles.   Further narrowing the search, especially in rough, broken country, may demand days of tramping over every part of those few square miles.   Clearly rephotography is only valuable and useful if some important results are expected.

Klett et al tell about some of the difficulties they encountered in The Rephotographic Survey, including vegetation that had grown so dense that the original site was almost inaccessible.  Dense vegetation proved a problem also in some of the examples shown here, where it was quite impossible to set up the camera precisely on the site of an earlier photograph.   They describe some of the strategies they used to locate the spot where the original photograph was made, including elaborate triangulation.  Sometimes there may be only one tiny spot where the photograph could have been made.   Usually the search must be narrowed by triangulation of objects and prominent landmarks.   Several practitioners have devised methods whereby the viewpoint might be determined in the field, by the use of cut-out templates and other visual aids to triangulation.

A problem that has not always been recognized is the possibility that many old photographs and prints may be distorted.   Many 19th century camera lenses had an unknown amount of image distortion.  More likely is distortion of prints caused by faulty processing and the effects of aging.  When possible it is best to work from glass-plate negatives or make new prints from the glass negatives, which are very dimensionally stable.  Distortion of the originals is usually revealed after the new photographs are made, and carefully compared with the old.  The problem is not usually a major difficulty, because most outdoor photographs in the 19th century were made with relatively small lenses at narrow apertures, which lessens the effects of image distortion.

Since we expect to make digital photographs when we have found the site, it is appropriate that digital processing of photographic images be used to aid the location process.  One useful tool is a transparency that can be held up against the scene.  Such a transparency should, of course, be large enough to be handled easily, and it must indicate the most important features in the original photograph.  So, we make a digital copy of the original.   The more sophisticated image processing software contains one or both of two special tools, generally called “edge detection” and “high pass filter”.   Either of these washes much of the information out of the photograph, leaving an enhanced trace of the most sharply defined features.  The example here shows the result of such image processing, applied to a simple photograph of a mountainside and some trees in the foreground.   The trial photograph, which represents an copy of an old photograph, was made at a normal focal length.

B. Useful Techniques: Finding the Location

The techniques of historical rephotography are simple to describe; but in practice they often require much labor and lucky guesswork. Finding the general location of an old photograph may require extensive library research, to establish its date, origin, and probable location. That may narrow the search down to a few square miles. Further narrowing the search, especially in rough, broken country, may demand days of tramping over every part of those few square miles. Clearly rephotography is only valuable and useful if some important results are expected.

Klett et al tell about some of the difficulties they encountered in The Rephotographic Survey, including vegetation that had grown so dense that the original site was almost inaccessible. Dense vegetation proved a problem also in some of the examples shown here, where it was quite impossible to set up the camera precisely on the site of an earlier photograph. They describe some of the strategies they used to locate the spot where the original photograph was made, including elaborate triangulation. Sometimes there may be only one tiny spot where the photograph could have been made. Usually the search must be narrowed by triangulation of objects and prominent landmarks. Several practitioners have devised methods whereby the viewpoint might be determined in the field, by the use of cut-out templates and other visual aids to triangulation.

A problem that has not always been recognized is the possibility that many old photographs and prints may be distorted. Many 19th century camera lenses had an unknown amount of image distortion. More likely is distortion of prints caused by faulty processing and the effects of aging. When possible it is best to work from glass-plate negatives or make new prints from the glass negatives, which are very dimensionally stable. Distortion of the originals is usually revealed after the new photographs are made, and carefully compared with the old. The problem is not usually a major difficulty, because most outdoor photographs in the 19th century were made with relatively small lenses at narrow apertures, which lessens the effects of image distortion.

Since we expect to make digital photographs when we have found the site, it is appropriate that digital processing of photographic images be used to aid the location process. One useful tool is a transparency that can be held up against the scene. Such a transparency should, of course, be large enough to be handled easily, and it must indicate the most important features in the original photograph. So, we make a digital copy of the original. The more sophisticated image processing software contains one or both of two special tools, generally called “edge detection” and “high pass filter”. Either of these washes much of the information out of the photograph, leaving an enhanced trace of the most sharply defined features. The example here shows the result of such image processing, applied to a simple photograph of a mountainside and some trees in the foreground. The trial photograph, which represents an copy of an old photograph, was made at a normal focal length.

The features of the landscape are recognizable, but the image is neither very attractive nor very useful. What we want to do is enhance the contrast so that this image can be used as a template for triangulation of the site.

The second example is the same image, to which has been applied a process called “posterization”, which reduces the number of gray levels, in this case to 5. Then the contrast has been increased so the image looks like a line drawing.

The final effect is rather artistic, but art is not the intent. An image such as this can be printed on a sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch transparent foil, such as used for projection transparencies. If the contrast is sufficient, the transparent image is opaque only at the edges of objects. It can then be held at arms length while moving about until the image and the scene match. In a trial using the image shown here, it was possible to re-locate the position from which the original photograph was made within about 10 feet. This is very precise, considering that the mountain ridges are about 2 to 4 miles away and the large tree near the center is about 400 feet away.

This method could be greatly improved by improvising a metal or wood frame to hold the template at a distance such that it subtends the same field of view as the original. But, since the original field of view may not be known, the frame would need some sort of sliding adjustment to change the distance from the eye to the template.

Once the location has been established within 10 or 20 feet, digital photography can make the final step of the process easier by enabling a series of test photographs, until the exact point has been found. This part of the process is largely trial and error, much as an artillery gunner might find his target by first aiming too high, then too low, and estimating the intermediate setting.

The History of 3 Bizarre Images – Weird Worm

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The History of 3 Bizarre Images

Despite being more than a century old, the art of photography never ceases to yield results which spark the curiosity of thousands. Whether it’s the creepy photo of a ghost, or a Facebook profile picture that inexplicably makes a girl look far hotter than she actually is in real life, there are countless photos that continue to baffle and intrigue mankind. Let’s take a look at some of the more noteworthy examples…

1.

The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall

brown

This picture, taken in 1936, is one of the earliest examples of spirit photography, and in an age where avid Ghost Hunters fans get all hot and bothered whenever they run across a blurry snapshot of some “orbs” (aka dust) floating around a cemetery, it remains one of the more convincing examples.

It is said to capture the ghost of “The Brown Lady” (so called because of the color of her dress) which reputedly haunts Raynham Hall, a house in Norfolk, England. As the story goes, in the early 18th century, Lord Townshend, who occupied the house at the time, took a wife named Dorothy. After approximately a decade of marriage, Dorothy passed away. However, there were some who believed that her burial had been staged, and that, in fact, Lord Townshend locked her in one of the rooms of the house, where she wasted away to death.

In the passing years, visitors to the house reported seeing the apparition of a lady, one which very much resembled Lord Townshend’s late wife, wandering the halls of the house and descending the staircase at night. Those who only got a brief glimpse of her assumed that she was another guest. Others, who were able to study her characteristics more closely, remarked that her skin seemed to glow. One reputable gentleman even claimed that she appeared to have had her eyes gouged out.

Things went on like this for two centuries, until, in 1936, two photographers on assignment for a magazine visited the estate overnight, hoping to capture the spirit on film. They worked into the late hours, and saw very little, until one of the photographers noticed some movement on the staircase and quickly snapped a photo. When it was developed, the infamous image of the Brown Lady was revealed.

Since it was first made widely available to the public, the legitimacy of the photograph has been debated. Paranormal enthusiasts champion it as definitive evidence for the existence of ghosts. Skeptics, on the other hand, argue that the photograph is a fake and was perhaps achieved by superimposing two images together, a process which could potentially generate such an image.

Although no one is certain as to whether or not the photo is actually the image of a ghost, or simply a very convincing fake, it is important to mention one odd fact: ever since the photograph was taken, sightings of the Brown Lady have decreased remarkably.

face

When this famous image from Viking 1 orbiter was released in 1976, UFO buffs rejoiced, celebrating the fact that David Bowie’s immortal question, “Is there life on Mars?,” was finally going to be answered once and for all. Not only was there life on Mars, but it wasn’t just microorganisms or decaying plant matter, the kind of life that is exciting only to NASA scientists and journalists who don’t mind coming up with misleading headlines. No, this was intelligent life, the kind of life that spent years erecting monuments which looked like massive, ugly human faces. On top of that, several of the hills in the area surrounding the face appeared to be in the shape of ancient pyramids that had acquired layers of dust and rocks over the years.

We had, it appeared, found the Martian equivalent of ancient Egypt.

Well, not quite. Those killjoys known as scientists were fairly dismissive of the photograph, arguing that it depicted nothing more than a run of the mill feature of the Martin surface that, due to the angle of the photograph and the light striking the hill, appeared to resemble a human face. When NASA returned to the region years later, higher resolution pictures of the same hill showed that it no longer bore such a strong resemblance to human features. Although many who saw the later photos still insisted that it looked like a person, one can’t help but wonder if they would have made such claims had the original photo not been so striking.

Either way, there are those who still believe that this particular region of Mars is, in fact, the remains of an ancient city from a Martian civilization. The area, now known as the Cydonia region, has become the subject of even more outlandish theorizing on the part of fringe scholars who claim that the apparent pyramids and monuments of the area correspond geographically to parts of the Earth’s surface. Although no one is precisely sure what the significance of that would be, it certainly makes for a great story anyway. Somewhere, a dedicated sci-fi fan is writing a novel about it for sure.

belmez

While we’re on the topic of creepy pictures of faces, we might as well cover the faces of Belmez, which first appeared in Spain in 1971. A woman was in her home one evening, when she looked down at her cement floor and saw that what appeared to be the image of a human face had formed on the floor. She noticed that the face almost looked as though the person was experiencing some form of pain or suffering.

She recruited her son and husband to get rid of the disturbing image. They took a pickaxe to the cement, removed the face, and poured new cement over the hole. However, after doing so, the face eventually reappeared, and went on to be accompanied by more faces throughout the house. Word spread, and the house became an area of great interest for paranormal enthusiasts and skeptics alike. Many regarded the phenomena as among the most bizarre and substantial cases of paranormal activity ever recorded (after all, so many visitors flocked to the house that the faces ended up being seen by countless people). Skeptics, on the other hand, were fairly certain that some form of trickery must have been involved.

Samples of the cement were taken, and over the years, they have been subjected to various studies. Although no obvious evidence of trickery has ever been found, studies have indicated that some slight traces of chemical elements which may show that the faces were somehow painted onto the cement were found. Although many skeptics took this revelation as proof that the images had been faked, it should be noted that the process of creating them would still be intricate and, apparently, involve a strong knowledge of chemical compounds. The family that resided in the home did not seem to possess such knowledge.

What is even more notable about this particular case is that, over the years, faces have continued to appear in the home. Of all the images mentioned in this article, this one remains the most baffling.

Have some more light to shed on the subject? Post a comment below!

Written by Joseph Oliveto – Copyrighted © www.weirdworm.com Image Sources

Image sources:

  • – The Brown Lady of Raynham Hall: http://www.prairieghosts.com/brown_lady.jpg
  • – The Face on Mars: http://www.scibuff.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/aliens-on-mars-2.jpg
  • – The Belmez Faces: http://www.occult-underground.com/img/belmez2.jpg

Source: The History of 3 Bizarre Images – Weird Worm