Program item

Archiving 2025

Conservation Imaging for the Larger GLAM Community: A Crash Course

SC03

CANCELLED NEW Conservation Imaging for the Larger GLAM Community: A Crash Course
Instructor: Adam Neese, The Museum of Modern Art
Level: Intermediate
Duration: 2 hours
Prerequisites: Understanding of camera-based digital imaging systems for digitization and reproduction.
Course Time: 8:45-10:45

Benefits
This course enables the attendee to:
- Understand, interpret, and make decisions about scene-referred information to supplement existing commercially available targets.
- Enable critical thinking about different materials and their reproduction.
- Apply and transcend digitization standards for more descriptive image making.

Course Description
This course introduces image-makers to alternative lighting types for material description and identification through the imaging process. It is designed to supplement existing knowledge of digitization and reproduction. With additional tools, qualitative documentation can occur to increase the understanding of collection materials, where desired. We will focus the workshop on two parts: scene-referred targets, both commercially available and ad-hoc; and the addition or subtraction of illumination to make more descriptive images.

Intended Audience: Image makers, imaging managers, collection specialists, and conservators

Adam Neese is the Senior Collections Photographer for Conservation at MoMA and has specialties in technical imaging for cultural heritage, fine art documentation, and architectural photography. He has held positions at the Menil Collection (Houston), Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), and since 2023 at MoMA. Adam holds a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an MFA from the University of North Texas, both in photography. Formerly, he was a professor teaching photography and studio art classes at the University of North Texas, College of Visual Arts and Design. Adam teaches Conservation Photography at NYU’s Institute for Fine Arts Conservation Center, and he is currently the Chair of the American Institute for Conservation’s Imaging Working Group. Adam lives in Brooklyn, where he is also a practicing artist.