HABS

Historic Preservation and Photography

I've been thinking a lot recently about photography as it relates to historic preservation.  There's a long history of photography as a tool in historic preservation, using old photographs to tell us about structures we don't have anymore, and using photography to make records of structures that may be threatened in the future. I've recently learned all about HABS, HALS, and HAER photography which actually require 4x5", 5x7", or 8x10" large format photography, even here in 2016.  The issue isn't that digital photography lacks detail, but that it isn't known to be as "archivaly stable" as film negatives.

In order to experiment with this area of photography I've borrowed a 4x5" Shen Hao field camera and all the accessories.  I've bought some film and I'm ready to give it a try.  I'll let you know if get anything good.

In the meantime, let's all make sure we don't end up like this guy, who went out to take a cool nighttime photo with an old building and ended up burning down a nationally registered structure:

http://petapixel.com/2016/05/09/steel-wool-photographer-burns-historic-1920s-building/