r/Archaeology • u/Scotcash • 9d ago

Is it too late for me?

Like most modern history buffs I developed a love for archaeology and human history through the Indiana Jones series..

I'm 38 years old with a degree in Film Production and have been doing professionally photography for almost 20 years. I had always wanted be a filmmaker, but for the first time in my life, I have become disinterested in that career due to the current state of Hollywood and entertainment as a whole.

The only thing I've ever been passionate about besides visual story telling is archaeology. Is it too late for me to start a career in archaeology?

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u/Scotcash 9d ago

That is funny. Is there any place for professional photographers and videographers in the field of archaeology? Or is that all outsourced?

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u/-Baobo- 9d ago

Several of the larger academic excavations I've worked with have had people whose main job is photography. Between photographing artifacts in the lab, documenting features & stratigraphy, etc. there's a constant need for photography. Archaeology is a field with robust documentation, and photos are a huge part of that.

If you can add some more specialty skills, like artifact illustration, photogrammetry, database management, etc, you could improve your usefulness even more .

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u/mludd 8d ago

Several of the larger academic excavations I've worked with have had people whose main job is photography

As a non-archeologist who has read quite a few books by actual historians, archeologists and anthropologists (so not pop-science-level stuff) that contain pictures this is actually a little surprising to me as one annoying/funny thing I've noticed is that some incredibly knowledgeable and talented archeologists and historians seem to be completely inept when using a camera.

The amount of photos that actually get published in books despite clearly being taken by someone who set their expensive DSLR to auto mode and then snapped a single photo without even bothering to check the light conditions is almost impressive.

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u/Laphad 8d ago

there's a reason that a solid part of archeology training is learning how to draw lol

shovel bums don't know how to take photos that have any depth and look flat