Fieldwork is something that is new to me, and it has been necessary to learn many new skills to be able to accurately produce a record of this cemetery. Some skills we have learned include: how to take photographs of grave markers in ways that bring out the inscriptions and how to clean the monuments while insuring that they do not get damaged during the process.
I had no previous experience with photography so it was really interesting to see how big of an impact the settings have on being able to read the inscriptions. Aperture and shutter speed were the settings that we changed depending on the specific monument characteristics and the weather conditions. Reflectance Transformation Imaging (RTI) was a technique that we learned to use in order to read really damaged monuments. RTI required us to take multiple pictures while the camera was stationary and the flash was separate so we could move the flash around which results in the light hitting the inscriptions at different angles and then layering the pictures on top of each other which made the inscriptions much easier to read.
With some monuments it is necessary to clean them before being able to take an effective picture because Lichen, moss, and other plant life deposit on the monument and cover the inscriptions. This cleaning can be dangerous to do on some monuments because they are so delicate and cleaning can do greater damage to the monument and the inscriptions than just leaving the monument as is. The issue that arises from this is that a monument is being saved by not being cleaned (if it is in danger) but you cannot read what it says, so the monument is being saved but you do not know what is being saved. We did not clean sandstone monuments because there is only one in the cemetery and it is very easy to damage these monuments when you are trying to clean them.
I have had to learn many new skills in order to just start being able to record the Jewish Cemetery and I still feel like we are just skimming the surface. I am interested to see how much more in depth we could go if we had more time, but I guess that just leaves possibilities for future semesters of students.