CHArt Computers and the History of Art CHArt 2000 Conference Paper Abstracts

VISUAL CULTURE AND THE NEW MILLENNIUM

Polly Elkin,
Victoria and Albert Museum

Securing the Object: The Photo Survey Project at the V&A

The photo survey project at the V&A arose from the desire to have images of all objects on display on the ground floor of the Museum, primarily for security purposes. It represents the first large-scale trial using a digital camera for object photography within the Museum, specifically monitoring the performance of the digital image against analogue equivalents. The project effectively falls into two main sections for discussion: image capture and subsequent object cataloguing.

Once the objects lacking an image had been identified (Ca. 2000 objects at part number level), work began out in the galleries with a V&A photographer, using a DC330 Fuji camera with Smartcard recording device. The digital camera had to function under the very exacting conditions of the public gallery space, with revealing implications for the use of digital photoraphy within this context.

The next phase of the project followed when the edited digital images had been transferred from the Smartcard to the image arena. A minimum number of fields for data entry were selected from the V&A core, chose for their potential use in multiple information nominated by the relevant collection, a core Catalogue record is generated for each object on the Collections Information System. This forms a starter record that will be expanded in future by curatorial staff. The digital image can then be permanently linked in to the Catalogue record.

Although the minimum core data standard created for this project acts in itself as a trial for future retrospective cataloguing at the V&A, the key subject to be considered is the capture of the digital image and the successive application of visual documentation tot he core Catalogue record.