SEPTEMBER 2023
HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
CONTENTS HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY
EDITORIAL
Journal of the Archaeology and Heritage Group
3 Perspective: Hidden
September 2023 Editor David Bryson FRPS heritage.editor@rps.org Advertising enquiries David Bryson heritage.editor@rps.org Archaeology & Heritage Group Committee Members Chair Heather LaurencePhD heritagechair@rps.org Heritage Photography editor David Bryson FRPS heritage.editor@rps.org Honorary Secretary Amanda Miller LRPS Honorary Treasurer heritagesec@rps.org David Bryson FRPS heritagetreasurer@rps.org Web editor Jim Souper ARPS Military Heritage and Distribution Shaun Parkes LDPS heritagemilitary@rps.org
Heritage DAVID BRYSON FRPS
4 Chair’s Chat Hello from Heather HEATHER LAURENCE
FEATURES 5-18 Western Canadian Heritage
TED BURCHNALL LRPS
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19-22 My Photographic Journey
KEITH BAMBER
23-25 Auckland Castle: Ice House
HEATHER LAURENCE PhD
26-29 Pathways
through history: Colliery Journeys MICHELLE YATES ARPS
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30-36 The misericords of Downside Abbey: A Unique opportunity. WALTER BROOKS
Published by the Archaeology and Heritage Group of the Royal Photographic Society, September 2023. Copyright in all text and photographs are held by the credited authors, or as otherwise stated. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form without prior written permission of the Publisher.
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Print ISSN 0958-0565 Online ISSN 2632-3346 Front cover photograph Making an axe head by Ted Burchnall LRPS
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EDITORIAL
Perspective: Hidden Heritage DAVID BRYSON FRPS
Deer in the Park emblem for Derbyshire on a stained glass window located in the former College of Art, Design and Technology, Green Lane, Derby no longer accessible to the General Public.
This issue takes a look at Heritage that may be hidden. Hidden can mean many things from known by you and others locally for example in the pieces by Keith Bamber and Michelle Yates about his home town of Romsey and her travels on pathways of colliery railway heritage respectively.
e-mail details on your RPS profile so we can contact you through the RPS’s Broadcast system.
Facebook Our private facebook group is at https://www. facebook.com/groups/rpsah
Some histories belong to families like the story of his Canadian heritage by Ted Burchnall. Some of us may get privileged access like Walter Brooks to Downside Abbey and Heather Laurence to an archaeological excavation before the site is covered over and preserved for the future. If you have ideas for articles or would like to get feedback about an idea for one please contact me by e-mail. heritage.editor@rps.org
E-mail Reminder Do remember add and if necessary update your 3
EDITORIAL
Chair’s Chat: Hello from Heather
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HEATHER LAURENCE PhD
ello everyone, first, I would like to express how honoured I am to have been elected as the chairperson of this wonderful community.
I hope that together we can celebrate our heritage and continue to document and record it in an ever-changing environment. The fast pace of 21st century life means that our landscape changes more quickly than ever before, and it has become extremely easy to forget the everyday things that are crucial in the making of our today. Look how fast technology has developed in the last ten years, never mind those of us who can remember scratching around in the depths of our pockets for a two penny piece having run half a mile to the nearest telephone box just to make that phone call, who knew then that we would, in a matter of a few short years, live in a world where it often seems that we cannot live without a telephone in our pockets. Yet, as those memories fade of the red boxes, and the subsequent silver and glass creations, where you used a prepay card. We need to have a photographic record of ‘the ordinary’ as tomorrow, it becomes our heritage. The rapid physical landscape changes, and the development of contemporary archaeology makes it so much easier to understand that archaeology is not always just about ‘digging up the past’ (although, we all know how exciting that can be!”) I was quite fascinated to hear of students doing the archaeology of a transit van, all the ‘normal stuff’ which was in the interior, sweet wrappers, old cans etc. that had been in-situ for a few years. Living in a village where there was once a thriving colliery, a railway station, factories, and all the amenities one would expect such as banks, post office, cinemas, a miners welfare hall, a swimming pool and street upon street of miners homes, we are now surrounded by woodland, fields and are considered a rural area, we have no bank, (a mobile unit visits twice a week), the post office is now a house, the cinemas are long gone, the factories dismantled and moved on, the miners welfare hall is a residential unit, the swimming pool demolished. The only evidence of the houses is a small road running through some woodland, with a white line fading daily.
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Newcomers to the area, are often oblivious to what went before yet without what went before, we cannot begin to think about today, let alone tomorrow. There is a fine line between history, archaeology, and heritage, and often, it is almost impossible to understand one without the other, yet with photographs, we can celebrate what we
All that visibly remains of eight streets of houses and a school.
now have, quite simply because of what was there before. The past may have not always been a rosy, sweet-smelling state of riches for a lot of people and many academics focus on the history of kings, the unearthing of churches and the riches of the past. The development of technology has also allowed us to explore the land with aerial photography like never before, (I know that there are a few of you who love Drone photography) and LiDAR, again, I know you are all out there. It is with this in mind, that I want to offer you the chance to celebrate with us as a community, take part in what we are planning, (I have a LOT of suggestions to put to you all) and come along to future talks, offer your services as speakers, we all love doing different things, and we WILL be interested in what you have to say. Enter some of your fabulous images in our up-and-coming monthly competitions via social media, explore our social media platforms as they expand and grow (they are going to!) Being RO to the Northern Region, I am aware of the challenges that are ahead of our community as we move forward, but I am sure that we can keep clicking those shutters, capturing what is out there, and help our SIG to become a happy, thriving space where we all enjoy photography and heritage together as we prepare for our 50th Anniversary in 2024. #PhotographyForAll Best Wishes and Happy Clicking Heather
FEATURE
Western Canadian Heritage The hidden heritage behind families can often be interesting and intriguing not just to the family they belong to but to everyone which many programmes like “Who do you think you are” on BBC1 go to show. Here I look at my family’s heritage based in Western Canada. TED BURCHNALL LRPS
Abandoned barn, Cochrane Albeert
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n 1903, my paternal grandfather left the family home in Friskney, Lincs., with plans to emigrate to the US. After landing in Halifax, Nova Scotia, my grandfather made his way across the continent, eventually ending up in Los Angeles, where he secured a job with the Southern Pacific Railway. In 1904, he was joined by his brother Ralph who secured employment as a Draper. They remained in L.A. until 1906, when they boarded a ship heading to Victoria B.C. and then eventually made their way to Calgary, Alberta. Ralph joined a surveying crew and received his degree as a Dominion Land Surveyor. My Grandfather received his papers as a Steam Engineer and was involved in the construction of a dam, railway bridges, coal mining, drilling for gas, and locomotive repairs. He filed a claim for 320 acres near Ponoka, Alberta and married my grandmother in 1926. My paternal grandmother was born in November, 1894, in Marshall, Minnesota, U.S. In October
1899, my grandmother’s father, his brother, and their brother-in-law, made the long journey from Minnesota to Ponoka, Alberta, Canada, to begin farming on leased land. My grandmother and the rest of the family followed by train in November, 1899. Their new “home” was twelve feet wide, with two beds. My grandmother and her three siblings shared one bed, whilst her mother, father and her baby sister shared the other bed. They had a table, chairs, a cook-stove, and two dressers, one stacked on top of the other. They celebrated Christmas in the one room, by inviting a neighbouring family of five to join them for dinner. By November 1900, my grandmother’s father had filed a claim on farmland just north of Ponoka, and had built a two story, two-bedroom house. The ground floor room served as a kitchen, living room and bedroom for my grandmother’s parents. The upper floor was a bedroom for the children, with three double beds. In 1910, my grandmother travelled to Calgary, to begin training as a schoolteacher. Her first 5
Rusting pickup truck – Sundre, Alberta
engagement as a teacher, with a salary of $600 per annum, was a one room schoolhouse with 29 pupils, spanning grades one to eight. Today, countless reminders of past lives are still scattered across the Canadian prairies. Heritage Park, located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, will be celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2024. It is dedicated not only to restoring and preserving relics from the past but also educating current generations about the lives experienced by great grandparents and grandparents during the late 1800s and early 1900s, in Western Canada. One of the big attractions of Heritage Park is that many of the exhibits are interactive. Unless otherwise noted, the photographs that follow were taken at Heritage Park. To clear the land and build a house was not a trivial exercise, therefore it was not unusual that the first few years of a homesteader’s family would be spent in a sod house. Homesteaders were literally hewers of wood and drawers of water. Trees had to be cut down and turned into lumber, for building houses, barns, etc. Hollywood has glamourized the west with gunfights, cowboys, and bar-room brawls. In Entertainment System
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Sod House
reality, most settlers were more concerned with feeding and providing shelter for their families and livestock. Communities tended to spring up near the railroads, especially in areas which were used as staging areas for the next section of railroad under construction. Once the early settlers disembarked from the trains, transportation was likely by horseback or horse-drawn cart. In the winter, carts were replaced by sleighs. Blacksmiths were an important part of the community. In addition to producing horseshoes, they were also responsible for repairing cartwheels, repairing farm equipment and producing any number of household items. A blacksmith would not only be familiar with a hammer and tongs, they were often skilled woodworkers and machinists.
economies thrived, building materials such as sandstone and brick became more common place.. In September, 1902, oil was discovered in Western Canada in what is now Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta. The first drilling rigs were wooden and although drilling for oil could be lucrative, the work was dangerous. As the number of farms grew in any given area, small towns started to spring up bringing with them merchants and skilled craftsmen. Commercial transactions went from bartering or the exchange of goods, to hard currency. Homes grew from a one room wooden structure, to multi-room furnished with items shipped in from eastern Canada or from Europe..
With a plentiful supply of timber readily at hand, most of the original buildings were made of wood. Many farm implements were comprised of a combination of metal and wood. As communities grew however, and as local economies thrived, more expensive materials such as sandstone and brick. As communities grew, and as local 7
Cart for transporting people and freight.
Cart for transporting logs
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Belt driven Drill Press
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Canadian Pacific Rail locomotive 2024
Passenger car with adjustable seating
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Wooden derrick
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Drill pipe and casing
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Blacksmith’s anvil and tools
Finished horseshoes
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One room homestead with windmill for drawing water
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Barber’s chair with the tools of the trade close to hand.
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Log Church
Bricks and mortar
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Sitting room
Cast iron stove
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Combine Harvester
No indoor plumbing.
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FEATURE
My photographic journey Like many, my interest in photography started in my teens. Also like many of us, it lapsed, apart from family snaps, while I focussed upon earning a living and bringing up a family.
KEITH BAMBER
This is the oldest domestic house in Romsey. Dated c1600, a timber framed manor house with three gables , the leftmost (the white one) thought to be considerably older than the others.
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ow retired I am refocussed through the lens and embracing digital photography fully. Or at least I thought I was.
Just as, complete with DSLR and long lens for the first time, I embarked upon a hobby encompassing wildlife and landscape photography, health issues began to effect my mobility. These health issues were completely incompatible with landscape and wildlife photography. First I changed to a mirrorless camera to reduce the weight and bulk of equipment I had to deal with. That wasn’t enough. Next I had to change what I actually photographed: my genres. Fortunately, this coincided with a growing impatience with my camera club life. The competitive urge to produce a single image to please this month’s judge was fading. I began to be much more interested in producing a series of
images to tell a story. I joined the Documentary Group and took up Street Photography. I enjoyed it and had some success. I was invited to cover events for local charities and newspapers but this still required a degree of mobility that I was rapidly losing. My street work became restricted to that which I could accomplish sat at a pavement cafe! Then came Covid. Immobile and confined to my home town I was determined not to give up my much loved hobby. I am fortunate to live in a lovely market town overlooked by a magnificent romanesque abbey. It was then I thought that I would focus more strongly on Architecture and Heritage and I joined the RPS Group. After all Heritage does not move very quickly and I ought to be able to keep up with it! Thus was born my first project: The Heritage of my own Home Town. 19
The South East aspect of Romsey Abbey, originally a Benedictine Nunnery.
The Corn Exchange built by 1st Viscount Palmerston in 1864. It is surprisingly classical in style. The Abbey can be seen behind the Market Square.
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KIng John’s House
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RPS Group. After all Heritage does not move very quickly and I ought to be able to keep up with it! Thus was born my first project: The Heritage of my own Home Town. These are a few of the images I have made so far:
The NE Aspect of the Abbey, formerly a Benedictine nunnery. Now the parish church. Romsey parishioners bought it from Henry VIII for £100 to save it from destruction during the Reformation.
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FEATURE
Auckland Castle: Ice House An Icehouse dated between the 18th and 19th century has recently been unearthed at Aukland Castle in Durham, a collaboration between the Aukland Project and Durham University Archaeology Department. HEATHER LAURENCE PhD
External view of the Ice House
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t is thought that the ice house was used by the prince Bishops to cool treats and luxury foods which students have had fun trying to recreate in the castle.
An exciting place to visit, but sadly, to aid preservation, the site has been mapped, photographed and re-bricked up in the hopes that it lasts another few hundred years.
Different phases of the build can be clearly seen in the differences in the cement and features which were unearthed.
There are other ice houses about the country which are open to the public https://britishlistedbuildings. co.uk/101281797-ice-house-north-east-ofconservatory-calke
Despite being bricked up for what is thought to be over 100 years, the inside of the ice house is almost perfect, with evidence of the bricks being repaired and re-bricked up during the 1970s as the latter bricks clearly show.
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Evidence of the bricks being repaired and rebricked during the 1970s inside the Ice House.
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Inside close up view of ceiling and repairs.
Bricks removed and kept for study as part of the excavation.
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FEATURE
Pathways Through History: Colliery Railways This series of images capture elements of heritage from the past which has included heritage buildings and their grounds and then expanded into documenting railway remains. The railway images included here are of Thoresby Railway in Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire and the disused line that is now part of the Skegby Trail in Derbyshire. MICHELLE YATES ARPS
Skegby Trail, Derbyshire. Bridge 2. This bridge running over the disused line was where we explored the pathways to be able to photograph its hidden heritage.
Each image was printed originally for the Hidden Heritage print exhibition in 2023 as Ultra HighDefinition prints in Black and White. The photographs are part of a self-directed photography project that has been in the making for four years. Each image is created using Phone Photography in black and white which has included using Modes on the phone itself, but 26
also getting into the realms of experimental and abstract photography practice by using fisheye and kaleidoscope lenses on other images not included here. For anyone who receives the Heritage Magazine may have seen my previous submissions where I have included Lens Ball photography which was an area I started exploring for the project from February 2022.
One image was to be included in the print submission, but it received an accidental crease whilst being mounted after the other five were completed and ready to go. The choice to photograph them in black and white was a creative one to capture detail in the images of the subjects which may have been missed if they were taken in colour. It was also to link the project to traditional black and white of how photography used to be. Printing them originally as Ultra High-Definition prints was a test to my phone’s capability and it being able to produce high resolution images as soon as the images were taken. I took a chance when I ordered them from an online printing lab that I have used in the past to print photography on both materials and paper. There was the thought they might pixelate, but I was impressed with the quality and the detail captured in the prints. When I explored the Skegby Trail back in July 2022 it was fascinating to see the railway remains that are to be found on the walk which were the bridges included in my submission. The pathways that are now in place of the tracks connect to each other as former colliery lines. Exploring heritage like railways allows for a feel to be created of how these lines were whilst in operation and the pathways allow us to connect to the places of history. There is also the personal connection that exploring railways is in my blood. My dad is a big train fan and has model railways. I grew up from a young age exploring steam railways across the country as well as being taken to places by trains on the mainline. This expanded to mainline trains in Mallorca, Spain, Rome to Naples to see Pompeii and the Eurostar to Paris. From the experiences gained here it gave me a realisation from a young age how railways connect us to other places of history, as well as the towns, villages and cities. It was the same lived experience that helped me to create the first part of my final third year project at university during 2015-2016 on disused railways being experiences frozen in time. It was also submitted to the RPS International Print Exhibition in 2016 where my name was on the short-list but not selected as one of the winners from the list to exhibit.
Thoresby Colliery Signal Box and Railway, Edwinstowe, Nottinghamshire. The view is taken from the tracks that have the continuing lines to help you follow into the image to the horizon.
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Skegby Trail, Derbyshire. Bridge over the disused railway that is now a public path that helps you have a feel how this line used to be when the collieries were in operation. Capturing the detail of the bridge at a closer angle.
Skegby Trail, Derbyshire. Bridge 2. This bridge running over the disused line was near where we started our walk to explore this area to be able to photograph its remains.
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Skegby Trail, Derbyshire. Disused Train Bridge which still holds remains of its past that trains once ran here on both sides.
Skegby Trail, Derbyshire. The same location as the image on page 26 but taken further back down the line to capture more the subject’s location on the approach to the bridge.
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FEATURE
THE MISERICORDS OF DOWNSIDE ABBEY - A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY Initial contact; In November 2018, I was surprised to get an email from Dr. Michael Pritchard, FRPS, at the Royal Photographic Society (RPS), asking if I would be interested in taking on a project to create a record of church furniture in a significant Catholic abbey. I had been suggested by Keith Evans, FRPS, a fellow member of the Archaeology and Heritage group of the RPS. WALTER BROOKS
Downside Abbey West Elevation
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’ve long had an interest (obsession) with producing images of the interior of religious buildings - generally without particular success because of the difficulties of location, position, lighting and the many other constraints encountered when taking photos ‘on the fly’, so the possibility of being able to do so within a controlled framework that I could set was very attractive. On the down side, as it was more than half a century since my last commercial contract, I was apprehensive about my ability to deliver a good enough product. However, I agreed to - at the least - visit the site to assess what was involved.
described by Sir Nikolaus Pevsner as ‘The most splendid demonstration of the renaissance of Catholicism in England.’ Its construction took place between the 1880s and the 1930s, in the NeoGothic style, and involved some of the most notable church architects of the time, including Sir Giles Gilbert Scott. However, it was Thomas Garner who designed the Choir (the location of the subject), with Sir Ninian Comper’s design being used for the stained glass of the East Window, among other internal furnishings.
The Abbey of St. Gregory the Great at Downside (Downside Abbey) is a Grade I listed building at Stratton-on-the-Fosse, in Somerset. It was
The project was to produce a set of images of the misericords in the choir for a large format book that it was hoped to bring to publication in the
The project
coming year. For those unfamiliar with the term, a misericord is a small wooden folding seat in each of the choir stalls in a church, on the underside of which there is often a carving of human faces, scenes or animals.
saints. In my view, the project needed to include all three elements, plus the end panels to the stalls rows - fine pieces in their own right. This was a significant enlargement of the project as envisaged. However, after discussion, Dr. Johnson agreed that, to do justice to a major element of this Grade I listed building, all should be included - in effect, creating a register of the major components of the choir stalls. It was agreed that, before making a final decision regarding my involvement, we should carry out a trial session to test the process and to make an assessment of the time needed and the resources. For me, the session was also to satisfy myself that I was up to the task! As I live some two hours drive from Downside, I was very pleased to accept the offer of overnight accommodation in one of the Abbey’s guest rooms for the duration of the trial.
Example of a misericord with a human face
The technical challenges The two key challenges were location and lighting With the exception of the front rows of the choir stalls, the space between the face of the misericords and the backs of the row in front was restricted to about fifteen to eighteen inches, depending on the particular misericord. I found that a standard focal length lens was not able to include the full area of the image that I felt was needed to give context. I decided that the only solution was to use a wide angle lens and correct the distortion in post production.
Misericord of an animal
When the seat is folded up, it is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a partially standing position during long periods of prayer. These particular misericords were made and carved by local workmen in the village of Ortisei in the Italian Tyrol, under the direction of the woodcarver, Ferdinand Stüflesser, a favoured contractor of Gilbert Scott. Following a brief exchange of emails with Dr. Simon Johnson, the Abbey’s Director of Heritage, in late November, I spent a day at Downside, to assess both the scale of the project and the hardware needed. It quickly became clear that this was not going to be a ‘point-and-shoot’ project! As can be seen from the photo of the choir on the next pages, the misericords are not the only element of significance - and perhaps not the most prominent from a distance. Above the choir stalls are statues of saints, thirty-two in all, and it is these that first catch the eye. In addition, the armrests separating each of the seats of the choir are as beautifully carved as both the misericords and the
As to the sculptures of the saints, the challenge there was to get high enough to be able to produce images that were taken from a little below shoulder level of the figures to ensure that facial detail could be captured. We concluded that a tower should give a platform at a good height and would be easy to move along the choir, and the Abbey staff undertook to arrange for one to be available for the trial. Lighting for the misericords was relatively straightforward. I tried ambient lighting, flash and static artificial lighting. The first was ruled out very quickly because there was simply not enough of it. Flash did not produce a good enough result because of the varied angles of the surfaces of the sculptures. After experimenting with various static light sources, I settled on a 5” x 7” lightweight LED unit that could be handheld and manoeuvred to control reflection off the surfaces of the subject. However, because of their location, about twelve feet above floor level, I decided to rely on ambient lighting for the statues. I did try using floodlights, but they made little difference, because daylight was stronger most of the time. The only variable factor was the state of the weather, and in this respect, I was lucky. Throughout the time that I was 31
The choir with tower scaffolding in situ.
taking photographs, cloud cover was consistent and only occasionally did I have to wait for the sun to be obscured. Although not a technical challenge, a further significant factor was timetabling. As a functioning place of worship, there were set services throughout the day. As a general rule, I was able to access the choir from 9.30 a.m. to midday and then from about 1.30 p.m. until 5.00 p.m. each day. From time to time there were also additional events, for example school choir practice and ‘in memoriam’ services. Obviously, equipment could not be left ‘in-situ’ during any of these events, so the available time was further curtailed by the need to dismantle the equipment and store it away, then reinstate it afterwards. Moving a tower platform to a discrete location is not a one person operation, and is time consuming, even with a number of willing helpers! However, this particular challenge was short-lived. At the end of the first day’s trial shoot of the statues, I was concerned to note that the images were ‘soft’, compared with those of the misericords. The following day, I shot a few of them again, but with the same result. I changed lenses, but with no improvement. It was only while I was standing on the tower, viewing the results on the camera screen that I noticed that even the slightest movement on my part caused the platform to tremble very slightly. This was enough to soften the image, and this was confirmed when I shot some of the statues from ground level, with perfectly sharp results. So, a 32 rethink was needed.
In discussion with Dr. Johnson, we came to the conclusion that a replacement tower was just as likely to suffer from the same level of instability. Alternatives considered included telescopic poles (even more unstable), drones (limited resolution at that time, and the need to capture the statues in portrait mode) and ladders. The dust of ages had accumulated on many areas of the statues, turning them grey. Before beginning shooting in earnest, volunteers had used step ladders to be able to clean them. While those ladders were too short to get to the position that I wanted, a search of the storage areas located a step ladder of about ten feet in height, and by the time that my tripod was strapped to it, I was able to achieve the required height with a much more rigid and more easily moved platform. The final hardware challenge for getting clean shots of the statues was that of how to screen out the architectural clutter behind the choir stalls. Trial and error resulted in the use of a simple black cloth backdrop, secured by clips to two eight foot poles held by a succession of volunteers, immediately behind the statues. Not ideal, but sufficient to reduce the background to near-insignificance.
The shoot The actual shoot took place in mid-January 2019, with accommodation being provided for me in the Abbey’s guest wing. Based on the trial run, I estimated that I would be producing a total in the order of 320 finished images, and that, with a maximum of six and a half hours available each day,
to shoot that number would take about thirty hours, or five working days, if all went according to plan. Of course, it didn’t. The shooting sequence was to work through the elements in turn, starting with the misericords, then the armrests, followed by the statues, and finally the stalls end panels. Inevitably, the first day did not go to plan! Positioning the camera to capture near identical images of the misericords proved more difficult than I had anticipated, due mainly to the variations in the subjects. Some were larger than others and I spent too much time during the first morning moving the camera to capture the subjects at the same size image, and trying various positions for the lighting. When reviewing the morning’s work, during which I had captured only half a dozen or so images, I could see that this approach had not worked and decided to start again, but this time to position the camera at a fixed distance from the subject, and then to make any necessary adjustments in post-production. Using that approach allowed for speedier working, and I was able to make up for lost time fairly quickly. The only variable that then needed to be dealt with was illumination. Because every one of the misericords was different, the position of the lighting could not necessarily be repeated and I had to move the unit around to minimise reflection off the surfaces. This was particularly the case with the armrests. Because of their shape, a number of them were very tactile and had become highly polished over the years, as the two shots above demonstrate. To reduce the reflection level, I bounced the light off a neutrally coloured board, which ‘flattened’ the light intensity. Fortunately, the number was small, as this approach raised other issues in post-production over consistency. Unlike the misericords, which had, effectively, a two dimensional appearance, the armrests could look very different from a changed perspective. After a number of trials, I decided that I would produce two shots of each armrest - one facing directly and the second from a roughly three-quarter position. The following two shots show how very different the armrest appears from one to the other.
Post-production processing To state the obvious, one of the great advantages of digital photography is the ability to see immediately the results, so that, by the time that one reaches the post-production stage, only minor adjustments need to be made. Gone is the terror of finding that the film had not engaged with the wind-on mechanism, or that image definition was not good enough. Processing the images of the misericords was fairly straightforward; it was the quantity that took the time. However, the statues were another matter. Although the statues had been dusted, their surrounding frames had not, and a good deal of post-production time was spent in touching out the more obtrusive cobwebs. A further factor was the colour of the wood used. As can be seen in the shot below, the statues are very different to the stalls - more ‘pink’. Without returning to the Abbey to compare again the onscreen images with the originals, I decided to make a series of prints with differing colour balances, which I sent to the client. The chosen sample that was returned was not the one that I had chosen from memory, so it was a helpful step.
Documenting the results Obviously, every image gets a file name when created, but it’s not very helpful in identifying either the location of the subject or its character - North or South choir, misericord or statue, etc., so all the finished files were renamed to reflect that data. The file name I settled on consists of three elements - North or South, character and sequence number. For example, the first misericord in the North choir was labelled NM01 (i.e. North side, misericords, number one). For ease of reference, using a spreadsheet, I created a simple graphic of the layout of the choir, showing the location of the individual elements, and provided an A3 printout to accompany the finished product.
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Statue without background screening
Statue with background screening
Armrest showing discolouration from handling
A three quarters view of the armrest
An unidentifiable blob
How to store the finished product was an issue to which I gave a lot of thought. I wanted a system that would provide ready access, and was relatively mainstream. After discussion with the client, we agreed that SD cards would be the most practical, but I felt that it would be more sensible to spread the images across a number of cards with small capacity rather than put them all on one large card. For the storage of the cards, I settled on a simple aluminium box that would hold eight SD/micro SD cards, and that settled the capacity of the cards at 4Gb each to contain the complete collection. I produced two sets, with each card in a set labelled with the starting and finishing filename to enable quick location. Given the importance of the project, I decided on a further ‘belt and braces’ back-up by copying all the files on to a portable solid state drive as well, and, following further discussion with the client, we decided that hard copy in the form of a photo book would be a useful general reference point.
Photo book
A fantastical creature
For me, the project began in November 2018 and ended when I handed over the finished products to Dr. Johnson in September 2019, who now has the much more demanding task of writing the text - one for which I do not envy him! I look forward to seeing the end product in due course. It has been a privilege to have been given this project and one that I would never have expected to take on at this point in my life. It was not only the immense satisfaction of undertaking such a challenging project; the experience of sharing time with the community of Downside Abbey (when not balancing at the top of a ladder or crouching in the stalls) was also profoundly rewarding. The individual members at all levels gave me every assistance possible in a courteous and companionable way. My thanks also go to my colleagues in the RPS, Keith Evans FRPS and Michael Pritchard FRPS for putting my name forward for the project.
Summary What appeared to be a fairly straightforward project at the outset - the production of a set of images to illustrate a book - became the creation of a record of one of the most important Grade I listed wooden structures of its time in a religious setting. 35
Cover of the photobook
Example page of the photobook
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