I considered representing my artefacts as objects from historical collections (which they are).
Examples of how such objects may be displayed include the images from the Mary Rose Collection. Some of these are shown below.
These images show the objects catalogued (with reference numbers included) and a scale bar to show their size. They are against a neutral background and show the detail of the objects.
I tried to replicate this with images of some of the objects I have. I have made catalogue labels and typed these on an old typewriter to attempt to model the appearance of an old collection. These are show below.
Technical Information
Again, I chose a focal length of lens adequate to fill the frame, but show the object from a distance comparable to that which someone would view this as an exhibit in a museum. I have used an aperture to maintain a depth of field to have the object, scale bar and label in focus. I have used flash lighting as these were indoors and I wanted control of the lighting to best demonstrate the features of the objects.
Critique
Technically, these images appear to me to meet the aim I had set myself. They show the objects in a similar way to those from the Mary Rose collection. There are some shadows, but these highlight the detail especially on the spoons. My main concern regarding these images is the composition – I have had difficulty positioning the elements in a satisfactory arrangement the horizontal and vertical elements are not all in line, and this could warrant further work.
The other critique I have of these images and this approach is that depicting these objects in this way implies that we know more about them than we do. That they are catalogued and recorded systematically. However the fundamental aspect of them that I am trying to capture is that they have been removed from their background and origins, and we have therefore lost the contextual information to make sense of them.
For this reason I have tried another approach.
Andrew Procter 