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Digital Humanities Issues, Tools, and Resources

Digitization of Photographs

In this week’s module regarding the digitization of photographs it became very clear to me the concept was not as simple as snap a photo and post it. During the Digitizing your Kitchen activities I was forced to think about images in a different way. Rather than just looking at the image, I had to truly analyze and ask questions such as “is the color correct?” “can I get an understanding for what this object feels, sounds, or even taste like?” which made me realize and image cannot capture all of that. In one example I took a photo of homemade blackberry jam in a glass mason jar, but after truly analyzing the photo I realized, if I had never seen, tasted, or just in general known anything about this jam, the image could not tell me everything. Sure I can see the color, and I can tell it has a thicker consistency, but I would no idea what it smells or taste like, and even the texture could be different than I imaged. This is where videos are able to be a step up in the form of digitization. That same jar when analyzed from a video stand point was able to give me slightly more information regarding the texture, I could tell it was a thick jelly-like consistency and would not be a liquid or a full solid, but an in-between. The video still could not depict the smell or taste, but it gave me slightly more. I also took a video of an orange scrub daddy sponge, which allowed for the texture, color, and even sound to be known. It is a porous item but the video also was also to show it was rough on the edges so I could imagine what it would feel like to hold it. Working with digital items forces an individual to think out the box when analyzing it. Yes I know what this items are and how the look, feel, sound and taste, but does someone on the other side of the world know? Digitized representations forces you to think of ways to make sure someone who has never seen canned homemade jam before can get the most information out of an image or video of a jar of jam as possible without any other context or descriptions.

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