Saturday 23 November 2014

Members of UWHG, including several of the ERG, joined members of St Mary's Church for a day school in Embsay on graveyard photography. We had an excellent day led by Nicole & Gareth Beale from the Centre for Digital Heritage, University of York. They demonstrated a technique called RTI photography which has enormous potential for the photographing not only of gravestones but also a wide range of artefacts such as bone, flints, coins, masons' and carpenters' marks, and carved graffiti.

With fairly basic photographic equipment and open source software Nicole and Gareth were able to produce extraordinarily clear images of a lichen-covered gravestone, the inscription of which is so obscured and shallow it's impossible to read it with the naked eye. Little gasps of appreciation went round as the photographs taken during the afternoon were processed and displayed on the projector screen inside the church.  

Our thanks go to Nicole and Gareth for providing us with the inspiration and exciting prospect of using this cheap and simple technique in the field - we came away bubbling with ideas we want to try out.

Jane Lunnon

PS. Thanks to Sue and Jennifer for the delicious chocolate cake that we enjoyed at the tea break !!