"Triptych" Photography for Ancient Coins

[Curtis JJ]

I was impressed by the recent thread on digital photography creations, and it reminded me of the ways I've played around with adding the "third side" of the coin. I'm not that great at photography (why I often use vendor photos when they have a policy of granting permissions). But this is a technique I enjoy using and find can add value. It takes some practice, though. So, in case it's of interest to anyone else, or anyone has tried similar experiments in perspective, etc....

Sometimes it's to show the thickness/edge and the high relief/profile portrait:

 

As you can see, getting the focus right can be difficult...

Before cropping out the background (these are thumbnails but they should expand to full size if you click them). In the Alexander photo I let my fingers get in the way a bit so editing them out was hard without clipping part of the coin's edge too:

  

Sometimes the design itself is meant to be seen from multiple angles and so the coin may actually have "two obverses":

 

It's my opinion that the following Celtic AE (an imitation of Thrace, Odessos) has "two faces" on the obverse (the primary/left one faces right, the second face left and only appears when rotated 120-degrees counterclockwise; it also has a central floral image). The top triptych below includes my rather inept attempts to show "how to see" the faces by tracing them in yellow (and horse w rider on reverse):

 

Triptychs are also valuable for highlighting various mint errors, such as the following (sold) clashed die on a Julia Domna denarius (this particular die-clash is well known, there's one on Doug Smith's website, and I've seen other examples from the dies). Notice the faint incuse of Julia Domna's head in the far right photo (i.e., upside-down reverse):

 

 

The final example, Julia Domna, was one of the earliest of these I did (at least 8-12 years ago?). It turned out okay in that instance, but here's an important piece of advice that I learned later:

Don't just flip one of the photos. Actually rotate the coin and take a second photograph of the same side. (Otherwise the lighting and shadows are off and it becomes visually confusing.)

Edited August 9, 2022 by Curtis JJ

[Al Kowsky]

7 hours ago, Curtis JJ said:

I was impressed by the recent thread on digital photography creations, and it reminded me of the ways I've played around with adding the "third side" of the coin. I'm not that great at photography (why I often use vendor photos when they have a policy of granting permissions). But this is a technique I enjoy using and find can add value. It takes some practice, though. So, in case it's of interest to anyone else, or anyone has tried similar experiments in perspective, etc....

Sometimes it's to show the thickness/edge and the high relief/profile portrait:

 

As you can see, getting the focus right can be difficult...

Before cropping out the background (these are thumbnails but they should expand to full size if you click them). In the Alexander photo I let my fingers get in the way a bit so editing them out was hard without clipping part of the coin's edge too:

  

Sometimes the design itself is meant to be seen from multiple angles and so the coin may actually have "two obverses":

 

It's my opinion that the following Celtic AE (an imitation of Thrace, Odessos) has "two faces" on the obverse (the primary/left one faces right, the second face left and only appears when rotated 120-degrees counterclockwise; it also has a central floral image). The top triptych below includes my rather inept attempts to show "how to see" the faces by tracing them in yellow (and horse w rider on reverse):

 

Triptychs are also valuable for highlighting various mint errors, such as the following (sold) clashed die on a Julia Domna denarius (this particular die-clash is well known, there's one on Doug Smith's website, and I've seen other examples from the dies). Notice the faint incuse of Julia Domna's head in the far right photo (i.e., upside-down reverse):

 

 

The final example, Julia Domna, was one of the earliest of these I did (at least 8-12 years ago?). It turned out okay in that instance, but here's an important piece of advice that I learned later:

Don't just flip one of the photos. Actually rotate the coin and take a second photograph of the same side. (Otherwise the lighting and shadows are off and it becomes visually confusing.)

Excellent idea 😊.

[CPK]

Yes! I've often thought of trying to capture the coin's edge like that, to give it a little perspective. I like what you've done @Curtis JJ!

Getting the focus right is part of the problem for me. 

[expat]

Nice idea for presentation. I just tried it in a vertical format to show the height of obverse relief on this Antoninus

 

Edited August 13, 2022 by expat

[Spaniard]

@Curtis JJ..I really like this way of displaying coins and it's nice how you've turned the edge shot slightly to show not just the edge but the relief....

@expat...That's a really good result, I like it.

Guess I'll try this out and will post some results....