Front cover.
Map of the study area.
Fig. 2, p. 3.
"Painted at two sites in the lower Columbia River region are fascinating sets of pictographs detailing the ritual activities of the people who have lived along the Columbia and Deschutes rivers for thousands of years. Bright red and red-and-white polychrome pictographs found at Spedis Creek and Harris Canyon document the vision quests of shamans and laypersons and show the deeply held beliefs people had about the Supernatural world. Informed by ethnography and mythology, these paintings are a testament to generations of people practicing their customs and passing their traditions and knowledge on to others.
With dozens of photographs and color plates, accompanied by other illustrations, as well as various maps and charts, the authors present the first detailed study of a Yakima Polychrome type site. In addition, they undertake a detailed comparison between that site and a much simpler group of pictographs at the nearby Harris Canyon site."
This publisher's statement from the back cover of the book only begins to describe this volume.
Columbia River canyon
in study area,
Fig. 3, p. 4.
Black and white recording,
Fig. 5, p. 12.
As important as the results of such a comprehensive study are, there is another important aspect of this, the process itself. Because they were not allowed to do mylar tracings (by the Washington State Parks Department) the black and white images which look like marvelously detailed field drawings are actually photographs processed with D-stretch, Photoshopped, and then printed in black and white. "During the Spedis Creek/Harris Canyon project we made no direct tracings of the pictographs or petroglyphs at either site. Instead we based our recordings of the imagery entirely on color digital photography. This exclusive reliance on color photography results in some issues that must be discussed. The first is our production and use of what we term photo-tracings. There are two sorts of such images. The simplest is stipple tracing done directly from the photograph. This is much like a direct tracing of an image, but one cannot control for the parallax that occurs when the camera lens is not absolutely parallel to the painted or carved surface, or when the surface itself has irregularities.
Other photo-tracings are made using the "color-replacer" tool in the Paintshop Pro or Photoshop programs. This technical operation involves selecting the color of the parts of an image one wishes to save and removing all other color from the photograph.
Using photographs already manipulated by the DStretch enhancement often means that the image of the pictograph one wishes to preserve is shown in the photograph as some combination of strange pink, white, orange, or even grey-black colors. Clearly making such a photo-tracing with the use of the color-replacer tool is a complex technical process that must be carefully orchestrated to eventually produce a two-color, black-and-white version of the image in the photograph." (pages 14-15) This will undoubtedly prove an important technique for many rock art recording projects in the future.
Spedis Creek panel,
enhanced with DStretch.
Plate 27.
One problem I have found in the past in recording rock art with team members who have artistic training is that they often cannot resist the urge to make small changes to improve it - "to make it look better." That is changing the image, not recording it. In one recording project that I led a number of the field sketches by "artists" (self-identified, not academically trained) had to be discarded. Normally I would say that there is a danger in using such photo manipulation to produce the final record, that decisions might be made on the basis of creating an attractive result, not the most accurate one, but with this team, and knowing Jim Keyser, I am fully confident that the final record is as accurate as it can possibly be.
All in all "Visions for Life and Death" is a marvelously detailed book by a highly professional team, of an area rich in important rock art. And, another important publication by the Oregon Archaeological Society. I am grateful to all of them for this contribution to the record of Northwestern rock art, and at an almost giveaway price.
The book is:
Keyser, James D., David A. Kaiser, and David L. Minick
2019 Visions for Life and Death: Pictographs of the Lower Columbia River, Oregon Archaeological Society Publication #26, Portland, Oregon.
8.5″X11″ 112 pages, 59 illustrations, 6 pages of color photos
ISBN #: 978-0-9915200-4-6
OAS publication #26
www.oregonarchaeological.org
Price $16.00 plus $4.00 Shipping and Handling.
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