While on the dig it was important to document what we found. In some cases this meant taking photographs of finds or areas of our square. Tonight I am sharing some pictures of the fun we had taking the photographs.

Here our square supervisor is getting ready to take a few pictures with an SLR camera. Because of the dusty nature of the dig site it was important to take special care of the camera. I am still cleaning dust out of my camera 🙂

Even though we had a large shade over our squares it was important to block the light so that we would have uniform lighting for the picture. If you look closely you can see Alla under the shade taking a picture. You can also see a scale stick that is used to give size perspective for the pictures.

Here is an area that has been prepped for a picture. We carefully clean the area and make sure that all the dust is cleaned up and that there are no footprints. In this picture you can see a size scale and also a label that identifies where the picture was taken.

We had a difficult time blocking the sun for one of the pictures. I finally came up with the idea of hanging the camera shade off of one of the poles used to hold up the sunshades. I was able to hold the shade high enough to block the sun while Luke held the bottom so that it was not blowing in the wind. We were able to get a good picture.

We then had a little bit of fun as we posed for a picture. The same method was then used several more times to block the sun in difficult places to reach. My little contribution 🙂

We also had a photo drone at the site to take aerial shots. Unfortunately, that meant taking down the sun shades while waiting for the right conditions for the picture. One day we had to work in other locations while waiting for pictures to be taken.

Drones are being used more and more in archaeology. I have seen several nice videos or pictures that have been taken by drones this season at dig sites around Israel.

Another method is to use a balloon to lift a camera above the dig site to take end of season pictures. This method is slowly going away as the reliability of drones has improved and the cost has come down.

I am looking forward to seeing end of season pictures of our site at Lachish.

Steven