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September 2010 Photographers Resource - Monthly Edition 81

Then and Now Photography

and Photographing Old Prints

The Square and St Johns Hunting Lodge Then & Now, Axbridge, Somerset

In This Issue:-

Editorial
Feature - Then & Now Comparative Photography
Photographic Feature - Photographing Old Prints
Photographers Diary
September Wildlife Diary

Coming to the end of the summer and tourist season in the UK, amid travel companies going bust, airlines and airports with industrial action and less than ideal weather in very many places, you might be tempted to wonder why we bother. While some like to go and lay in the sun, until approaching medium rare, others of us who like to get experiences, learn, see, explore and fact find, try to keep out of most of it, drive around in air conditioned vehicles and stay in air conditioned hotels maintaining temperature, well very near to home, in the later part of an English summer. So the UK in September is perhaps the ideal, not too hot, many of the schools starting back and therefore numbers of people thinning out, and even at weekends we find many psychologically have passed the holiday period, and there are few crowds and so much to see.

We are fortunate in that we live in a country with so much to see, explore and enjoy, if you were to visit a couple of places or things a week you would have difficulty getting to see everything available in a lifetime. Joining organisations like the National Trust, English Heritage, and the Scottish and Welsh equivalents, the Historic Houses Association, Wetland and Wildlife Trust, RSPB, and others, each for one year before moving on to another, can give a large number of places each year with no entry charges, and on top of this there are many National museums and very many places that you can visit that have no entry charges. See Controlling Costs under reference, for more ideas on getting to explore more at very low cost.

Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire

September is a month where historically many of us think about doing an evening course or joining a local organisation, and some do it, well at least for a few weeks. Its also a time when many stop and think about the hobbies or interests they are going to pursue over the winter months, and younger people start making their Christmas present wish lists. Others say if only I had the time I would..... or I wish I had..... but now I am too old, infirm, busy, idle, have too many commitments, or some other collection of reasons. Perhaps I am no different if only I had more time I would write more, I have at least half a dozen novels thought out, could get around to editing more photos, index my photo collection, do more drawing and painting..... and this is only the beginning of the list.

Given that you are probably the same, many things you would like to do if only...., you may not feel you have the time for more, although there is an old saying that 'if you want something done you should give the task to a busy man', and to be politically correct we should now add 'or woman.'

So the interest I want to introduce you to is Time Travel. No I'm not marketing a time machine, although having one might allow you to get more done, but instead looking at the exploration of changes that have occurred over time.

As a photographer I am looking at this from a photographic interest viewpoint, but people who don't want to take photos can enjoy this interest just as much, and its something that photographers will find other members of the family are happy to become involved in and others will love to see your photographic results. The interest can also be called comparative photography, and is a valid branch of photography with commercial, legal and defence applications, or from the time travel perspective 'then and now' photography.

Buxton Pump Room, Derbyshire

Lets explain how this newsletter and resource works

Each month we have a newsletter or magazine and this comes out on or about the 1st of the month. The newsletter also links to a number of new articles, tables of information and detailed location guides amongst other things.

One of the most popular features is a monthly diary covering interesting and unusual things on, around the UK in the two months ahead.

Everything that appears, or ever has, is indexed in a number of ways, alphabetically, by topic tree entry, by county, and often linked into sections. Many of the sections have their own front doors so people with other specific interests have access through these doors to their area of interest.

You can also get back to see every newsletter, over 80 of them.

Each article or location guide and some others also have hyperlinks, flagged with symbols by them, telling you what it is and where it goes, so means its an article (they connect together to tell a full story, so are like parts of a jigsaw), a list, a location guide or a featured location guide that you want to get your eyes on.

is a route guide, a photo gallery, a map, a PDF document, and the like. means its one of our system pages, such as a section or index.

The flag shows its a link to an outside website and will always open in a new browser window.

We also have symbols that tell you what is at a location, so when looking through an index or newsletter, you know what is there without looking at each one, or us having to use a vast amount of text. If you see a symbol you don't recognise putting your mouse pointer over it, tells you its purpose or clicking on it, brings up the full list of all symbols, in a new browser window, so you don't lose where you are reading.

Many months we add major new topics and develop these to be the best resource on that topic. If we were a printed magazine we would be limited to the amount that would fit between the advertisements, while being online we have no physical limit, just time. So many of our topics are huge, many months we don't add the contents of a magazine but the equivalent to several books. This means that in many topics we have the most complete and largest amount of information available, we have all Lighthouses in use around our coasts, every windmill with sails and most others where any major remains exist are listed. We have every stone circle, carved hill feature, all preservation Railways, Living History museums, and major sections on Roman Britain , waterfalls, coastal, thousands of Gardens and large Historic Houses, , many Castles , all the Abbeys and major religious buildings and more. We also have information on various wildlife and some plants. I am sure you get the idea, look through back copies or the topic or sections indexes to see the full range. Each month more gets added and as its all indexed multiple ways you can find it. We have covered a large number of photographic skills, techniques and special interests all defined and explained with projects and more.

All of this makes a huge resource, and much of it is of general interest to everyone who likes to get out and explore Britain as well as photographers.

All you need to do is to remember once a month to come back and see what's new and when any question arises to consider coming to see what we have in our resources available. Its all FREE, there is no registration or other requirements and advertising is kept to an absolute minimum and never in the centre of articles or other information. There are no paid staff and we cover our costs by you occasionally clicking on an advert and from this we get a few pence.

Feature

Then and Now or Comparative Photography

If we took a photo and then came back in a year or two and took a photo from the same location some things would have changed, councils do this from the air to spot who has built what without planning permission, and its done with spy planes to monitor military installations, its also used in the very short term a few fractions of a second or several minutes to automatically issue revenue charges for people speeding. See Comparative photography and speed cameras.

Then and Now photography, we can take a photo taken some time back by us or others, perhaps published prints or paintings and go and find the location the photographer or artist stood, to see how it has changed. In your lifetime you will be able to think back at just how many things have changed, but using other material we can go back further, travelling back in time. We can go back just over 100 years and see around 1,500 colour photos of Britain in around 1905, or we could travel back in time around 200 years and look at the 400 or more images created by the artist John Constable, some as sketches and some as painting as tall as you or larger.

Old photographs are available for just about any area or topic, be it as Photochromes, old postcards, prints in your local museum or library, local history centre or from one of the commercial firms offering them or from a range of books now produced with old photos. Within your family others may have old photos of personal interest to you as well. See w here to get old prints from to look at this further.

Photochromes are a specific interest of mine and I have collected 1,500 covering the UK, some as scans or copies made by others, but I also have a large number of originals. We previously had a short introduction to Photochromes but I have just completely rewritten and extended it, see an introduction to Photochromes. We also before had some of our Photochromes online and available to you, but did not have Scotland, Wales or Ireland, I have completely redeveloped this sub website to become a larger archive of images, and at the same time redesigned and expanded the Photochrome section, it's now on our NEW Photo Archive website, available from the locations menu, section menu and gallery sections. At the same time we have included Scotland, Wales and Ireland as well as the English photos you had available before, giving you the chance to see now all 1,500 or so images we have to date.

I have in the last month also invested a day in Derbyshire, looking at the places the Photochromes were taken and then visiting and looking to see what can be seen now. Derbyshire Then and Now Locations is a table that shows 6 photos I went to see and links to photos and details on 12 others.

Monsal Head Then & Now, 1905
Monsal Dale, Bakewell, Derbyshire

In practice a lot of the day was spent also looking around two large houses, and you have only the 'then and now' details available now, although we will write these locations up fully at some point. This table links to 6 'then and now' location pages allowing you to see the old photos as well as what I found and some photos taken on my visit.

Monsal Head 2010

Monsal Dale, Bakewell, Derbyshire

Around 15 year ago I did a series of then and now photos running over many months for a national magazine, and I spent another day, within the last month, revisiting 7 places in Somerset one of which I had 2 'then and now's' and another 4. As I have photos taken 15 years ago, I have 3 generations, the then, then 15 years ago, and the now for these. These are linked in Somerset Then and Now locations, linking to 7 location pages.

There are a few more locations defined with then and now photos at Then and Now Locations linked to location guides.

Wigmore Then & Now, Herefordshire

Last year and earlier this year, I visited again some of the locations that the artist and landscape painter John Constable used in his paintings, the locations of some are well known while others are more of a time detective game to work out. With art, rather than photographs, the artist may have used some artistic licence, but in most cases John Constable painted what he saw and therefore we have the opportunity to go and try and find it again, now approaching 200 years later. I have visited quite a lot of his painting locations, and have not so far had time to write them all up, but I have started producing the table John Constables Painting Locations Then and Now listing some of his works, and have produced, so far, 16 location guides for paintings or groups of paintings, plus a feature guide on Flatford Mill the centrepiece of Constable Country and around which many of his paintings were based. I could add quite a few more now, and have a list of other places I still want to explore. The article John Constable Painting Locations explains more about the artist and his life story, plus shows a few of his works.

The White Horse Then & Now, Flatford, Suffolk

by John Constable

If you decide to join in this interest and track down some locations yourself then you will find the articles Then and Now Photography, Where to Get Old Prints From, and How to Find Locations helpful. The last of these looks at the tricks, or should we call them skills, that allow you to work out where the photo is of and where the photographer or artist was standing.

We have also added a couple of extra reference pages that may be helpful Record Offices gives details and links for most of the public record offices both representing national and county archives, Where to Get Old Prints From suggests more sources. The second reference page is County Code List, this is the three letter abbreviations used by family history and local history enthusiasts, as well as us, to identify static ceremonial counties and information relating to these county codes and their use is further explained in the article County Codes.

An article Local History takes an introductory look at this interest, and added at this time as it's relevant to finding old photographs, but we intend to expand on this in the future.

Photographic Feature

How to Photograph Old Photographs, Prints and Paintings

The article How to Photograph Old Prints looks at how to go about producing photographs of this type of material, and overcoming each of the problem areas associated with it.

In practice for 'then and now' photographs, we have discussed above, you can often download copies of images or use a scanner to produce an image, if its only required as a low resolution image for use on the internet or the like. Producing a good photograph, with the colour balance right and all problems overcome would produce a far better result than scanning.

A lot of the downloadable material you will discover is not ideal, I have for example art copies of John Constables paintings, plus a few quality reproductions produced by artist, and the detail and colour in these is far better than the public domain images available. The public domain images serve the purpose I am using them for, of comparing locations, and the images I have used throughout the location guides added this month I used either scans or existing files, rather than re-photographing these, as the images resolutions being produced in these were not large, but if I wanted to produce a photo for an exhibition or similar use I would then re-photograph originals where I could.

Market Day Hereford Then & Now, Herefordshire

When you look at old prints, you will discover different technology, surfaces and techniques. Some will be more of challenge to photograph than others. Photography was not a big bang invention by an individual but a slow process where the development or discoveries of one person was built on by another, and some times slowed down, as technological developments are today, by people taking out patents. Some but not all of these small steps is shown in A Photography Timeline I have produced starting from 600BC and coming up until recent time.

We are starting to cover a little more of the history of photography, and cameras but rather than this being a feature subject we decided to add it a little at a time, looking at collections, cameras, techniques, how to identify these, and items like image sizes and material used. So the timeline is the first part of this, but also interesting when we want to re-photograph old prints, as its the stating point to have some idea as to the age of the print. The timeline also gives you a good idea of what type of photos are available at what time point and where you run back before photography.

We plan to come back to photographing prints in a while when we look at re-photographing and restoring images with examples and projects as well.

Changes - What would you like ?

Much of what we have done in this newsletter and linked resource has worked well, if you are not familiar with what we have available see the column near the top of this page on the right for a general description. Some areas we know we would like to improve and we have so many topics and places we would love to cover.

We are currently reviewing our design and method we use to produce it, as well as servers and other arrangements. We want to be able to get the volume throughput we get now, but perhaps could do with using some later development tool resources, maybe benefits other programming languages offer, and maybe a later typeface would be clearer. However we are aware of the need to keep the site at a level where older browsers can read it. Although ideally we would very much like to hear from any of you who have any requests or suggestions. You can suggest things, even if you don't know how it could be possibly achieved.

We are also considering creating a special simpler smaller version of pages that would be usable on a mobile phone browser, so minimal text, small photos but maintain much of the location grid information. What do you think, would you use this ?

Another area under review is how we fund this resource, perhaps we should have more advertisements, perhaps put a donation button on every page, perhaps look for sponsorship. While its a non commercial site, so we don't need to generate profits, we are limited in what we do and would just love to be able to take on more large projects. Maybe you have ideas on this.

Perhaps you would like to become involved in some way, if so tell us how, and please feel free to suggest anything at all.

We won't be able to do everything people suggest, partly through funding limits, partly time and the need to keep the design constant enough that the hundreds of thousands of people who have already been enjoying our content still feels its a site they are happy to use. Its a site built principally for people in the UK, although we welcome the readers we have from around the world and on a typical day have readers from around 60 countries.

The Photographers Diary

The October diary is now in the 'next month' slot with September moved to 'this month'. Both months have a lot of opportunities for everyone. Some highlights that are of particular interest are:-

The start of September sees probably Europe's largest steam fair get underway near Blandford in Dorset. The Great Dorset Steam Fair runs for 5 days from the 1st to the 5th of September. In this large site its arenas and display areas showcase Steam engines and vehicles of all types, Fairground Organs, vintage cars, bikes and commercial vehicles, tractor pulling, heavy horses, vintage collections and occupations, rural crafts, dancing shows, fairground, pipe bands, nightlife and a music festival. A must see for steam enthusiasts, but also a great opportunity for photographers to capture images of these giants of steam operational in demonstration areas or in the arenas.

Great Dorset Steam Fair

Carriage Driving

by Paul Woolrich

The 2nd sees the start of the 3 day Burghley Horse Trials in Lincolnshire, and on the 9th the 3 day Blenheim Palace International Horse Trials take place at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. Staying with the horsey theme the National Carriage Driving Championships, where the skill of horse handling with a carriage are displayed over the 3 days at Windsor Great Park in Berkshire, using the back drop of Windsor Castle for this prestigious event. If you want to see the heavy horse in action then check out some of the Ploughing Matches taking place this month around the country including in West Felton, Shropshire, where the Cruckton & District Ploughing and Hedging event takes place on the 25th, watch out for the Human Ploughing match, where a team of 16 people dress up, 1 as the the ploughman the remainder as the 'horse power' and they plough an area of land in 15 minutes.

Heritage Open Days. Every year our heritage is celebrated with a weekend of FREE access to many of our historic buildings, including some properties that are normally closed to the public. This year the event runs from the 9th to 12th and nearly 4,000 properties in England are taking part. To find a property near you check out the Heritage Open Days website and search for something to explore in your area. On the same theme Scotland also has it's own Doors Open Days, which take place over the 4 weekends of September starting this weekend on the 4th. Cities, towns, villages and countryside from the Highlands to the Lowlands are involved, opening up historic and contemporary buildings that are not normally accessible to the public or free to enter. The highlights this year include a top secret WW2 bunker in Inverness, a lighthouse on Shetland, and caves in Edinburgh's South Bridge. As part of the European Heritage Days, Wales' Open Doors Days also take place throughout September, more can be found out at their website where you can search their database to find something to visit. The 2010 programme has nearly 300 opportunities to visit FREE of charge heritage sites and take part in activities whilst exploring the history and architecture of Wales. See their website for more details and to find somewhere to visit. Also if you live a London a similar event, which celebrates London's architecture, is taking place with the annual Open House London event. Hundreds of buildings of all types and periods open up their doors for FREE during the weekend of 18th and 19th, visit Open House London for more details.

Blackpool Illuminations

Blackpool Illuminations. The 3rd-5th of this month is the big switch on weekend for this years Blackpool Illuminations, which is being switched on by Robbie Williams. Blackpool has been bringing this spectacular show each year since 1879, with the streets of Blackpool and it's trams being lit up during the long autumn nights. Each year new additions are added along the drive and this year is no different, but not unveiled until switch on night, with last year a new Dr Who section added. At the Bispham Cliffs end the tableaux's are always a highlight especially for children, two of this years themes for these being Dino Doom, with dinosaurs and Goulish History depicting the history and heritage of Blackpool complete with its very own Gouls. For photographers a walk along the route opens up loads of night time photography and low light photography opportunities as well as being able to experiment with slow shutter speeds for

movement effects of the colourful lighted trams, or the fairgrounds on the piers and within the Blackpool Pleasure Beach. See our location guide for Blackpool Illuminations to find out what we were able to capture back on a visit in 2008. We also have the following articles which may help you with some of the techniques you can employ to get those good shots.

They are:

Photographing carnivals with lights

Photographing fun fairs

Photographing fireworks

.

These articles are also going to be useful towards the end of the month and into October when we start to see some of the many annual illuminated carnivals take place. There will be more details on these in next months issue.
If you're looking for something a bit more unusual then you could take a look at some of these:-

Sowerby Bridge Rushbearing event on the weekend of 4th and 5th September in Sowerby Bridge, Yorkshire, where a 16 foot high rushcart is pulled by 60 local men in clogs visiting churches and a few ale houses in the local area.

Abbots Bromley Horn Dance on the 6th September takes to the streets of Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire and 12 dancers carry reindeer antlers, and a hobby horse travel about 10 miles to different locations through the village and surrounding farms and pubs.

World Black Pudding Throwing Championships in Ramsbottom, Lancashire on the 12th where they throw black puddings wrapped in ladies tights at a collection of Yorkshire puddings on a plinth 20 feet up.

If you are in Scotland you could take a look at the World Stone Skimming Championships on Easdale Island near Oban on the 26th.

Sowerby Rushcart

This month sees the last of the majority of the annual airborne events, not many of these events take place during the winter months, for obvious reasons. However if you want to get in a couple more before the end of the season then take a look in the diary for the Battle of Britain Air Show on the 4th and 5th September at Duxford. Or in the middle of the month another Battle of Britain Airshow this time at the Cotswold Airport at Kemble in Gloucestershire. If you live or on holiday in Northern Ireland then a visit on the weekend of the 4th and 5th, to West Bay Beach in Portrush will find the skies filled with Red Arrows, wing walkers, helicopter displays, parachute display teams and various other military and civilian aircraft for two days at the Northern Ireland International Air Show.

If you want to see some air activity but don't want the noise and scale of the military airshow then you could pop a long to the Bristol Kite festival on the 4th and 5th, to see large scale kites take to the skies or venture a little further southwest to Tavistock in Devon and you could visit the West Country Balloon Fiesta on the same weekend.

Zapcat Racing
by D G Butcher

On water you could go to Devon and watch the finals of the Offshore Powerboat Racing Championships on the 10th, or pop along the to the Southampton Boat Show to see some spectacular boats. The Salford Quays in Manchester is host to Zapcat Racing on the 18th and on the 25th in London The Great River Race takes place with over 200 different rowing boats race each other along the River Thames, including teams from around the world and some in fancy dress.
So as you can see there is still a lot still going on in the UK during the September of all different types of activities and plenty for you to get out and photograph.

Wildlife Photography In September

September 1st is National Zoo Awareness Day, so take a visit to your local Zoo and see what they are doing to make life better for the animals they look after. Zoos also allow those who do not travel abroad to get the opportunity to see animals from around the world. However we have plenty of wildlife in UK that you can visit both in zoos, wildlife parks and by going out into the countryside, my also get to see in the wild.

If you would rather explore part of our vast coastline, you could take part in the annual Beach Watch Big Weekend on the 18th and take part in recording what is happening on UK shores.

Red Deer

Red deer can be seen all year round in the UK at various deer parks and in the wild. However during the rutting season September-October the males are more impressive with their full gown antlers for the year and combat between competing males. Take a look at Where to Photograph Red Deer and our article Photographing Deer on the best ways to go about getting some good photos of these impressive animals.
September sees the end of summer and the beginning of Autumn and our wildlife landscape starts to take on a change with those who visited for the summer returning to their wintering grounds in Africa and some of our winter visitors starting to arrive. Our river estuaries and wildfowl and wetlands centres start to become stop off points for some and permanent winter homes for others such as

Oystercatchers with their distinct black and white plumage and characteristic long orange beaks. Geese, including Canada Geese will start to appear in their characteristic 'V' formation in the skies as they head for our watering holes.

For our native birds the colourful Goldfinches can be seen on the side of our roadways as they flock to teasel heads to get at their seeds before they ripen. Of our summer visitors Swallows, Swifts and House Martins will be taking their leave of us and retuning to their winter grounds, but they'll be back next year ready to have a new brood.
In our woodlands you may have already noticed that the leaves on some of our trees are starting to loose their vibrant green colour, and are starting to put on their autumn coats of gold's, yellows and orange. A walk in the woodlands you will start to see evidence fungi as it is peak season for them, varieties such as stinkhorn will not only be noticeable because of its large shape, but also as its name

Goldfinch

suggests because of its pungent smell. A walk in the countryside you cannot miss the giant puff ball, usually grouped together on permanent pastures.

Many species of all types of wildlife including insects, birds and mammals will be busy foraging for food to build up their reserves ready for the coming winter months. The hedgehog will not only be building up their fat reserves ready for hibernation, but some females may also be giving birth for the second time this month. You may have noticed more small flies this year, I know I have and as the nights start to draw in in the dusk of the night you will see bats out making the most of this easy meal.

So don't forget the outdoors is just as good a photo opportunity at this time of year as any other, and for some of our visiting birds, it may be the last time you get to see and photography them for this year.

Summary of Articles Included In This Issue

County Codes

Local History

Comparative Photography and Speed Cameras

Then and Now Photography

Where to Get Old Prints From

How to Photograph Old Prints

How to Find Locations

John Constable Painting Locations

Lists Added This Issue

County Code List

Record Offices