By Nicole Dawkins (Collections Management
Assistant- Artifact Handler) and Christine McLean (Collections Management
Assistant- Photographer)
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| ( BSM Image S89.0178) |
Over the last two and a half months, photographer Christine McLean and I
have been working our way through the Bata Museum incredible artefact storage
rooms, as part of an ongoing collections management project to photo document
the over 12,500 (and growing!) artefacts in the collection.
The colour, digital images we produce will replace out-of-date black and
white analog (film) photographs, and will be linked to the artifact records in
the museum’s collection database— allowing museum staff and researchers to see
and identify the objects without having to visit artifact storage. In the
future, these images might also be used in exhibition catalogues, research
publications, on the museum website, or even things like calendars and greeting
cards.
As
photographer, Christine has been primarily responsible for lighting, operating
the photographic equipment, and producing clear and professional shots. My role
has been in carefully transporting, positioning, and preparing the artefacts
for photography. This project is also very collaborative— we work together on
composing each shot, and share the job of processing the images in Photoshop as
well as preparing and managing the image metadata to be uploaded to the
database. Christine and I have also had the opportunity to switch roles and try
our hands at object handling and photography, respectively. (Christine was
pretty excited to finally be able to touch
the objects we are shooting!).
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| Sole shot of black silk lotus shoe with elaborately embroidered sole featuring fish, lotus flowers, roots, and seed pods. (BSM Image P02.0017) |
The
main purpose of documentation photographs is, of course, to document: to record the important
details and the unique or significant features of each artefact. With shoes,
this usually includes capturing an overall shot of a single or pair of shoes, a
profile shot, a sole shot, and often one or more close-up shot of details like
embroidery, fine decorative elements, labels, and signs of wear.
Beyond
just documenting, we are also trying to create compelling and aesthetically
pleasing shots that are applicable for a variety of purposes. For the purpose
of this project, we have had to find a balance between capturing each artefact
as it is (unruly threads,
lopsidedness, unsightly wear and all) and trying to capture them in their very
best light.
Aside
from a short period of scanning archival material, lithographs, and other flat
material— while our camera was sent out for repairs— most of our time has been
spent photographing clogs and Chinese lotus, or bound-foot, shoes. What a
contrast between the large, dark and rugged (often worm-holed) wooden clogs and
the bright, tiny and dainty, intricately hand-stitched lotus shoes!
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Sole shot of early 20th century
Dutch clog, covered in woodworm holes. (BSM Image S85.0195)
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When
we were told we should start with the clog collection, I think we were both
imagining working with identical hand-carved, clunky, unfinished wooden shoes.
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| Unfinished clogs. What we were imagining most of the clogs in the collection would look like... | (BSM Image S85.01) |
As
we progressed, we came to appreciate “clogs” as a much broader and interesting
category of footwear. We photographed clogs intricately carved with flora or
portraits, massive leather bog boots, and clog roller skates!
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| Not your average clog: beautifully carved wooden mule. (BSM Image S84.0194) |
Working
through the clog collection, we came to learn the fine art of positioning
shoes. Pairs of shoes look really awkward when posed “unnaturally”— in a stance
that a one would never take when actually wearing the shoes. It really helps to
think about the personality of the kind of person who would have originally
worn the shoes— the strong, wide stance that seemed appropriate for bog boots,
for example, just wouldn’t work for posing Louboutain stilettos.
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| These tall leather bog boots have stiffened into this position – a ghostly trace of the man who once wore them. (BSM Image P97.0180) |
Photographing the lotus shoes, we also had to be aware of capturing the
complex stories recounted through the hand-embroidered characters, motifs and
visual puns that decorate these shoes from toe to heel, to sole.
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| This lotus shoe from Shanghai feature a complex embroidered motif expressing a bride's desire for her husband's career success. (BSM Image P92.0055) |
It wasn’t difficult to appreciate these shoes as beautiful objects, with
their bright colours, the incredibly fine stitch work, and striking sculptural
form. Working so closely with the objects, it became more interesting to notice
and capture signs of wear and tear. A surprising number of lotus shoes have
visible dirt and mud caked into the soles, evidence that they were actually
worn, walked, and even laboured in.
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| Red silk wedding shoes with red soles showing caked dirt and signs of wear. (BSM Image P02.0019) |
The Imaging Project, funded
in part by the Young Canada Works program, has enabled us both to gain hands-on
collections training and experience, as well as a rare opportunity
to work intimately with hundreds objects from the Bata collection to
(hopefully) capture the multi-faceted stories they tell.
