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Also posted at DePressing Review, so if you saw it there, you may want to skip what follows
Last Friday I took the day off work to join a small group organised by Amateur Photographer magazine here in the UK to visit Lacock Abbey - the home of William Fox Talbot.
For those who haven't heard of him, Fox Talbot invented the calotype process, which involved the production of a negative image, and therefore the possibility of using that negative to reproduce as many subsequent positive images as you needed. A real founding father of modern photography.
Lacock Abbey itself is now owned by The National Trust, and open to the public. In fact the whole village has been preserved and is a lovely old English village with a few shops and pubs - well worth a visit. Sadly, however, the weather was awful and the parking along the streets somewhat detracted from the village - I took one or two shots, but nothing particularly worth sharing.
The visit began with time in a small museum, the ground floor of which is dedicated to Fox Talbot and to photography more generally (including a case with various interesting old cameras up to and including a vile gold plated Nikon (I think it was an FA). Upstairs was a new exhibit of pictures by George Bernard Shaw (I hadn't realised he was an accomplished photographer), which were well worth the visit - the tones and sharpness from some of the very old platinum prints were astonishing - and unlike anything I've seen from digital. No photos from the museum either - they don't encourage it, and I was too busy looking at the exhibits to take photographs of them.
However, part of the point of the day was to take photographs, so we moved on to the Abbey building itself - a 13th century building rather attractively positioned in the English countryside:
I hadn't realised that the building had also been used as the set for various bits of Harry Potter movies - with the cloisters being used as part of Hogwarts. There was a huge group of young HP fans being shown around while we were there. Fans of the movies may possibly recognise some of the building? Apparently the cloisters were used for the scene where Harry frees Dobby from Lucius Malfoy:
There were also some interesting side rooms from when part of the Abbey was a monastery:
And the whole place is in pretty good shape given its age - the chimneys are better than the ones on our Edwardian house!
Accommodation upstairs was very comfortable - you could get used to it, I feel:
And you also get to see the famous lattice window which was the subject of the world's first surviving negative (dated August 1835). Two versions, one colour, and one aged a little:
After a decent lunch in one of the local pubs, it was time for a wander outside, which meant it was time for the rain to start bucketing down and the wind to blow most of it in our faces! So, with my back to the view I wanted to take, I had to make do with the views looking away from the house instead:
Eventually the weather calmed down so the tripod could be turned the other way, and we had half an hour to wander around the outside of the building:
I also loved this tree (but not the distant view of a main road from many of the viewing angles):
I finished up by having a quick skirt around the garden before having to take the train home - wish I could have spent longer in there:
All in all, a very pleasant day - I wish I'd had longer to concentrate on the photography and that the weather had perhaps been a little kinder. On the other hand, it was fun to use the E-1 (almost entirely with 14-54) esp on those occasions when owners of newer and more capable kit had to shelter away because they were worried by the rain!
And - had a pleasant chat with Damien Demoulder - the editor of Amateur Photographer - who informed me that he also owns an E-1 (and for those of you who think it's a Canikon dominated journal, I can confirm that neither of the AP writers on the trip were carrying Canons or Nikons - and that one of them had the new GF3 with Panasonic 25mm lens.... which he was rather impressed with. Full test apparently coming in a few weeks).
Bonus shot - the train home was delayed because the freight train in front broke down - so this was the view out of the window:
Sorry for the length of this post - hope it was worth viewing for those who stayed with it!
Cheers,
Jon
Last Friday I took the day off work to join a small group organised by Amateur Photographer magazine here in the UK to visit Lacock Abbey - the home of William Fox Talbot.
For those who haven't heard of him, Fox Talbot invented the calotype process, which involved the production of a negative image, and therefore the possibility of using that negative to reproduce as many subsequent positive images as you needed. A real founding father of modern photography.
Lacock Abbey itself is now owned by The National Trust, and open to the public. In fact the whole village has been preserved and is a lovely old English village with a few shops and pubs - well worth a visit. Sadly, however, the weather was awful and the parking along the streets somewhat detracted from the village - I took one or two shots, but nothing particularly worth sharing.
The visit began with time in a small museum, the ground floor of which is dedicated to Fox Talbot and to photography more generally (including a case with various interesting old cameras up to and including a vile gold plated Nikon (I think it was an FA). Upstairs was a new exhibit of pictures by George Bernard Shaw (I hadn't realised he was an accomplished photographer), which were well worth the visit - the tones and sharpness from some of the very old platinum prints were astonishing - and unlike anything I've seen from digital. No photos from the museum either - they don't encourage it, and I was too busy looking at the exhibits to take photographs of them.
However, part of the point of the day was to take photographs, so we moved on to the Abbey building itself - a 13th century building rather attractively positioned in the English countryside:
I hadn't realised that the building had also been used as the set for various bits of Harry Potter movies - with the cloisters being used as part of Hogwarts. There was a huge group of young HP fans being shown around while we were there. Fans of the movies may possibly recognise some of the building? Apparently the cloisters were used for the scene where Harry frees Dobby from Lucius Malfoy:
There were also some interesting side rooms from when part of the Abbey was a monastery:
And the whole place is in pretty good shape given its age - the chimneys are better than the ones on our Edwardian house!
Accommodation upstairs was very comfortable - you could get used to it, I feel:
And you also get to see the famous lattice window which was the subject of the world's first surviving negative (dated August 1835). Two versions, one colour, and one aged a little:
After a decent lunch in one of the local pubs, it was time for a wander outside, which meant it was time for the rain to start bucketing down and the wind to blow most of it in our faces! So, with my back to the view I wanted to take, I had to make do with the views looking away from the house instead:
Eventually the weather calmed down so the tripod could be turned the other way, and we had half an hour to wander around the outside of the building:
I also loved this tree (but not the distant view of a main road from many of the viewing angles):
I finished up by having a quick skirt around the garden before having to take the train home - wish I could have spent longer in there:
All in all, a very pleasant day - I wish I'd had longer to concentrate on the photography and that the weather had perhaps been a little kinder. On the other hand, it was fun to use the E-1 (almost entirely with 14-54) esp on those occasions when owners of newer and more capable kit had to shelter away because they were worried by the rain!
And - had a pleasant chat with Damien Demoulder - the editor of Amateur Photographer - who informed me that he also owns an E-1 (and for those of you who think it's a Canikon dominated journal, I can confirm that neither of the AP writers on the trip were carrying Canons or Nikons - and that one of them had the new GF3 with Panasonic 25mm lens.... which he was rather impressed with. Full test apparently coming in a few weeks).
Bonus shot - the train home was delayed because the freight train in front broke down - so this was the view out of the window:
Sorry for the length of this post - hope it was worth viewing for those who stayed with it!
Cheers,
Jon
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