Photographer for hire...

ARCHAEOLOGICAL PHOTOGRAPHS

Prehistory at Tottenham Hale

Building strong relationships with construction site staff can open doors—sometimes to great heights! A big thanks to site supervisor Shane Maher for facilitating these elevated views. Through good communication and mutual trust, we gained access to the upper stories of a neighboring building under construction, making these perspectives possible.

A Bronze Age settlement in Cholsey, Oxfordshire.

A field stripped of its ploughsoil revealing archaeological features cut into the natural geology from above.

3D model click

A 'crouched burial' dating very likely from the iron age, found within a boundary ditch surrounding the settlement. The iron age in Britain refers to a period in time between 800BC and 45 AD.

Cremations were also found on the site including a large Bronze Age cremation urn containing burnt bone and also the split ironstone pebble and flint tool depicted here. It is thought that these were used to start the cremation fire. For scale, the pebble is about 30mm at its longest diameter. The bronze age in Britain refers to a period in time somewhere between 2300-800 BC.

All archaeological photographs appear by the kind permission of the copyright holder Pre-Construct Archaeology Ltd.

Deep urban archaeology viewed from the above.

This shot was taken from the roof of a large building, but the view was blocked by a tall concrete parapet. Since leaning over wasn’t an option, I secured a monopod to an immovable object and rested it horizontally across the parapet, with the camera attached and angled downward. Using the camera’s phone app—and some help holding my phone—I adjusted the frame until I got the perfect shot. Photography is often about finding creative solutions to the obstacles that stand between you and your vision.

This detail is captured from ground level on the opposite side of the site and using a similar technique. The site was excavated to extend the basement of the adjacent building conversion. The negative forms seen in the geology represent various historic intrusions cut into the ground from above. The infill of theses intercutting features was methodically removed and recorded. The finds are kept and labelled to provide clues to the purpose and dates of the activities that caused the disturbances.

Roman Stane Street unearthed in Southwark.
Stane Street linked Roman London to Roman Chichester.

This scene was photographed using a 15-meter photo mast supporting a remotely operated DSLR camera. The image is oriented northward and showcases roadside ditches, a hallmark of Roman road construction.

To the right of the ditches, a line of post holes is followed by a gravel road surface. The three large pits are later rubbish pits, cut into the road from a higher, later ground level. The Roman road extends beneath the property boundary and the modern Harper Road to the east (right). The scale bar in the image measures 2 meters.

On the left, a stone Roman sarcophagus is visible. Its lid was lifted and moved during a grave robbing event, likely during the English Civil War. A nearby parliamentary defensive earthwork and a piece of pottery from that period, found in the disturbed soil, support this theory. The skeleton inside had been disturbed, and a fragment of gold—probably from robbed grave goods—was discovered within.

The chalky deposit to the left of the sarcophagus is a substantial chalk foundation, thought to be part of a roadside temple. The structure extends westward beyond the site boundary, beneath currently occupied 19th-century housing. The sarcophagus itself was quarried from Ancaster in Lincolnshire