ARF's Intern in Photography

Thérèse Babineau

Since August 1994 I have worked as an intern in photography on several photographic projects at the Archaeological Research Facility (ARF) and at the Hearst Museum of Anthropology. One of the first projects I took on was to make the ARF darkroom fully operational. Now with all the essential supplies and pieces of equipment in place, the darkroom has become a valuable resource for ARF associates and graduate students. During the months of October and November I offered photographic print orientations to archaeology graduate students. I will again offer these orientations in the coming spring semester.

I am pleased to announce that there is a key check-out program for archaeology graduate students interested in using the ARF darkroom. If you are already familiar with black-and-white photographic print darkroom techniques or have taken the print orientation, you can obtain a key to the darkroom from myself or Hillari Allen, the ARF administrator (510) 642-2212. Access in the evening and over the weekend is also possible. If I am not in my office (room 110), call me at (510) 643-1457 to arrange to pick up a key.

At the Hearst Museum I have been working on two photography exhibits and on the photographic component to a third exhibit. The first exhibit will portray UC Berkeley archaeologists and anthropologists in the field. Printing negatives from the museum's photo archives, I will cover chronologically the evolution of field techniques over the course of the twentieth century. The second exhibit will be on Hawaiian archaeology, illustrating selected sites from all of the islands. This exhibit has evolved out of the book on Hawaiian archaeological sites that my husband, Patrick Kirch, and I have jointly written and illustrated, to be published in 1996 by the University of Hawaii Press. Professor Kirch's exhibit on Lapita culture will be showing concurrently with the Hawaiian archaeology photographic exhibit. My work on the photographic component of the Lapita exhibit involves detailed black-and-white photos of the decorated pottery and shell artifacts. These photos will also be reproduced in Professor Kirch's forthcoming book, The Lapita People, to be published by Basil Blackwell's.

I hope to end my two-year internship in spring semester 1996 with a practicum for archaeology graduate students covering artifact set-up shots, film development, and printing.