Heritage Photography Spring 2011

Patron: Her Majesty The Queen.

Incorporated by Raval Charter

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

In the footsteps of the Czars: The Ambassadors' Staircase in the Winter Palace, St Petersburg See page 8

R. Keith Evans FRPS

Steel-hulled, fully rigged ship Balclutha, built in Scotstoun on the river Clyde in 1886 See Recording Britain's maritime Heritage, pages 4-5

SPRING 2011

Archaeology ¡ & Heritage Group Chairma n R. Keith Evans FRPS 7 Grassy Lane Sevenoaks Kent TN13 1PN Tel 01732 743943 Secretary Rodney Thring LRPS 27 College Ride Camberley Surrey GU15 4JP Treas urer Jim Tonks ARPS Earlton 174 Chairborough Road High Wycombe Bucks HP12 3HW Committee Eric Houlder LRPS (Archaeology Editor) Martin Fletcher Len Johnson LRPS Ken Keen FRPS Gwil Owen ARPS Dr Mike Sasse (Webmaster)

PERSPECTIVE The Group's Annual General Meeting, held at Leatherhead in May, saw the resignation from your Committee of two long-serving members - Ernie Gates, Treasurer since 2001, and John Spence ARPS, best-known to most of you, perhaps, as Editor for many years of Heritage Photography . Behind the scenes , John has also been a vital member of our Exhibition team. Their contribution to the Committee has been invaluable, and I am pleased that both will remain active members of the Group .

Our new Constitution provides for a maximum of six committee members in addition to the chairm an, secretary and treasurer. Jim Tonks ARPS , who has been our Secretary for 15 years , takes over as Treasurer; our incoming Secretary is Rodney Thring LRPS, and we welcome a new committee member , Martin Fletcher.

Our 2011 Programme of Events was circulated with the last issue of Heritage Photography. Already this year we have enjoyed well-attended visits to Ely Cathedral, and to Lancing College and nearby churches. Ely in particular was a popular choice of venue; largely completed in 1189, it is remarkable for its unique octagonal central tower and lantern, and for its Lady Chapel , founded in 1321. Next we visit the Bluebell Railway in Sussex, an opportunity to photograph - and travel in, if you wish - Victorian-era trains on this picturesque line. Details of visits later in the year, notably to Claydon House and, in September , to Hereford Cathedral , appear in our website.

Mention of the Constitution , above, reminds me that copies are available to everyone on request from the Secretary. It was formally approved by the RPS Council in November 2010, and it is worth noting that it defines the Group's photographic aim as 'the recording of all aspects of history, including archaeological discoveries, buildings, artefacts, transport , militaria and industrial heritage' .

With such a wide brief , I know that many of you will have material - words and pictures - that could form a valuable contribution to the pages of Herita ge Pho tography; or, of course, to our Annual Conference, a one-day event held each October. To give you an idea of the variety of topics presented, look back at the report of our 2010 Conference in the Membership Matt ers section of the February RPS Journal. To discuss any ideas you might have , for an article or a half-hour presentation , just phone me. These are, remember , your journal and your Conference , so they need your contributions !

Enjoy the summer's photography, meanwhile , and I look forward to meeting you at our forthcoming events .

R. Keith Evans, Chairman.

Published by the Archaeology & Heritage Group of The Royal Photographic Society, May 2011 Copyright in all text and photograph s is 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 Publi sher.

ISSN No. 0-904495-00-0

Ely Cathedral, notable for its octagonal tower, p hotographed during the Group's visit in March.

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Avoid death by PowerPoint

• • •

Eric Houlder LRPS, archaeologist and photographer, offers some light-hearted but important advice to Members who may be preparing an illustrated PowerPoint presentation of their work.

I went to a lecture the other day. I go to a lot of lectures, and indeed do a lot of public speaking myself. In this particular instance I went with high hope s, as the speaker was a professional, a professor no less.

I knew that the talk would be illustrated, as there was a PowerPoint projector set up, with a laptop close by. Excellent, I love good pictures, and the professor's subject involved architecture, so I waited to see what gems would appear on screen. But I was deepl y disappointed , for when the projector swung into action , only words appeared - and these in black on a white background. Within moments, it was evident that our noted speaker was merely using the screen as an impromptu autocue - for his own benefit , not that of the audience!

Remember the basic tenets Like this one, many lectures are spoiled by misuse of PowerPoint.

They fail to adhere to the basic tenets of projection , built up over the generations since the first magic lantern thrilled our great-great grandparents.

Many of those tenets have become redundant, like always keeping the projector behind the audience: essential with a slide projector , but irrelevant with the very short lenses on digital units. Likewise with tiltin g the machine, also irrelev ant with perspective control of keystoning.

However, there are some things which do not change with technological advance, and the most important is to do with the visual presentati on itself.

Here , it is vital that in the dark of the lecture room , the part of the screen which is not being used for the image should appear ' maximum black ' . Any light which leaks .onto the unused portion weakens colours and contrast, effectively ruining the image.

For best results , photographically speaking, always choose the black background, and insist that the room itself is blacked-out as co°!npletely as possible . You will not regret it.

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

Using the 'recolour' option for a background picture with text overlay.

Below: Follow this with the un-recoloured image for impact.

Imagine this on a white or coloured background!

Address the audience, not the screen To return to the unfortunate professor for a moment , another downside of using the screen as an autocue is that the speaker tends to address the screen, not the audience. With modern microphones this may not appear to be a problem , but often the mike is attached to the speaker 's tie, and his turning towards the screen cuts off the sound! With no mike, it is totally disastrous. So if g1v111g a live presentation, be sure to address the audience, not the screen.

There are a number of other 'rules '

which date from magic lantern days, and believe me, some of that hard-won knowledge is invaluable to the modern presenter . Take one of the really useful aspects of PowerPoint, its ready ability to incorporate text. The problem is that the obvious thing to do is to treat each slide as a book page, using black on white , and filling it with text ...

STOP! That slide might be readable on your monitor, but what about the audience member sitting at the back of the hall? To put yourself in his seat, simply print out the slide on 15x10cm paper and hold it at arm 's length. Can you still read it? No! Why? Because there is too much text and the characters are too small. Now try using bigger text , fewer words, and if necessary use several successive slides. Better!

Combining text and image Even so, that white background will dazzle to the point of discomfort. Try reversing the image to white on black .

Much better! Now try putting the same text over an image instead of on black. Pretty confusing, isn't it? But re-colour the image - say sepia - and apply a contrasting outline and shadow, and perhaps colour , to the text. Better still !

Clearly the image itself is important , so to gain its full impact copy it onto a new blank slide immedi ately after the text slide , but remove the re-colour. By selecting an appropriate change mode , the transiti on will give the audience all the inform ation they need , culminating in a first-class image , unsullied by inappropriat e backgrounds or unreadable text. Finally , don't forget the old advice to FILLTHE FRAME. Sadly, PowerPoint itself often encourages the glaring mistakes I have discussed. However, the combination of traditional knowledge with the undoubted advantages of the software, plus some thought and experimentation, will ensure that you will be well prepared for your next presentation .

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Our wealth of marine history and tradition is typified by the many treasured historic vessels still afloat or preserved in dock or ashore.

R. Keith Evans recounts the stories of some of the best-known and most important of them.

Recording Britain' !

Of all the world's seafaring nations, few can equal the number or variety of restored ships proudly maintaining Britain 's maritime traditions.

Some, like Queen Mary, are no longer in home waters since her final transatlantic voyage in 1967, the Cunard liner has been a hotel/museum ship off Long Beach, California - while others, such as the pioneering Turbinia, are safely under cover in shore-based museums. Yet others remain afloat as restaurants and bars , as for example the paddle steamer Tattershall Castle on the Thames in London .

Most notable, though relatively few in number, are the ships carefully preserved in working order and regularly sailed or steamed. The world 's last remaining seagoing paddle steamer Waverley, for example , celebrated her 60' h anniversary in 2007, providing passenger-excursion voyages from numerous ports around Britain .

Some of our large commercial sailing ships, too, may still be admired. Cutty Sark, despite a near-disastrous fire at her berth in Greenwich, should soon be re-opened in her role as a museum ship and tribute to the great tea-clippers. The squarerigged Balclutha, Glasgow-built in 1886, is another fine museum ship - albeit, like Queen Mary, now in California.

Several spritsail barges, wooden or steel-hulled, recall the traditions of coastal and North Sea trading as they sail in and out of the Thames, Medway and other east-coast rivers, carrying day-trip passengers or taking part in annual races.

Similarly, on the once almost derelict network of Britain 's canals , many hundreds of volunteers have restored locks, pounds and tunnels that today enable a fleet of narrow-boats to carry holidaymakers through often unspoiled countryside .

Recalling steam power A little-known facet of British steam propulsion from 1934 to

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Tattershall Castle (foreground) and Wingfield Castle, moored at the British Railways ferry pier at New Holland. Photographed shortly before the end of steam ferry operation across the Humber, both vessels still exist- as tourist attractions in London and Hartlepool respectively.

Below: Spritsail barge May, built by Canns of Harwich in 1891, enters the Thames estuary. Note the bowsprit rig.

Page 4: Heavy cruiser Belfast, moored in the Thames as a museum ship, remains almost completely as built in 1938.

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1978 was the three coal-burni ng, side-paddle steamers operating daily ferry service across the three-mile wide Humber estuary between Hull and the Lincolnshire railhead at New Holland.

Built for the LNER, and after rail nationalisation owned by British Railways , they were handfired and thus required BR firemen (or 'stokers' in marine parlance) long after the demise of that craft on the railways !

Opening of the Humber suspension bridge in 1981 ended ferry operations, but all three steamers subseq uently became tourist attractions - Lincoln. Castle in Grimsby , Tattershall Castle in London, and Wingfield Castle at her birthplace in Hartlepool. The latter two still remain.

Military vessels Of all the naval ships still extant , best-known must be HMS Victory, a ship-of-the-line built in 1765 and renowned as Admiral Nelson 's flagship at the battle of Trafalgar. Still officially in commission , she lies carefully maintained in HM Nava l Base at Portsmouth.

Nearby are two other famous vessels - the remains of Henry VIII's flagship Mary Rose, and Warrior of 1860, the world's first iron-hulled warship .

On the Thames near Tower Bridge, and like the above ships a much-visited tourist attraction , is the last surviving British heavy cruiser. HMS Belfast was built in that city in 1938, saw considerable wartime action, and today as a museum ship is a virtually complete example of its type.

Other World War¡ II vessels, both surface craft and submar ines, can be found , for example , in Chatham Historic Dockyard and at Gosport , Hampshire.

Of course, here we have just looked at the ships; marine artefacts, charts, weaponry, recovered treasure - all are equally well represented ~in our maritime museums , and deserve an article in their own right.

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

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A treasury of op Preserving buildings, mach our open-air museums continue to br Text and picture)

'Pendean', an early 17 th century timber-framed house at the Weald & Downland Museum in Singleton, Sussex.

As generally understood , open-air mu seums are refuges for buildings under threat on their existing sites. After being disassem bled with great care , the building s are conserved and painstakingly reassembled on their new site. Museums are often regional in nature , reflecting local building styles and materials as well as the rural , urban or industrial nature of the area : the Weald & Downland Open-Air Museum in Sussex, the Avoncroft Museum of Buildings in Worcestershire and the Chiltern Open-Air Museum in Buckinghamshire are good examples.

At several sites, including the Black Country Museum near Dudley and the North of England Open-Air Museum at Beamish , County Durham, faithful copies of vernacular building s mingle with conserved examples. They complete period scenes, and are used to display genuine house and shop inte riors . Indeed , some sites are more complex still , for example the Bli sts Hill Victorian Town near Telford in Shropshire, where industrial archaeology is also present in the form of early blast furnaces.

Road widening and town centre redevelopment are amongst the reasons why buildings cannot alway s be conserved in situ. A fine 15'11 C Wealden house from Chidding stone, Kent was threatened by the building of a reservoir and became one of the earliest exhibit s at the Weald & Downland , now a recognised centre for the conservation of timber-framed buildings . Its exhibits chart the development of such buildings in the south-ea st from the 14th century onwards , show ing ¡ how mediaeval dwellings with living spaces open to the rafters, and central heart hs without chimneys , developed into the layout of homes of today.

Buildings in flint, brick and timber can all be found here , including barns and cart sheds, cottages and a smithy.

The range of structure~ on view at open-air mu seums is indeed impressive. At both the Avoncroft and Chiltern sites

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one can find a ' tin-tab ernacle' (a temporary church or chapel) , a toll-house and ' prefab' bungalow from the 1950s, complete with period interior. The great changes in farmin g in recent time s have led to traditional farm structures, from shepherds' huts to impres sive cruck -framed barns , being well represented at many sites. A whole farmyard has been created from conserved buildings at the Chiltern museum, many of them from a single farm , whilst at Bea mish the extensive site encompasses a Victorian farmhouse complete with period interior , as well as all the outbuildings.

Re-creating our urban past Urban and industrial buildin gs are promi nent in the museum s of the Midlands and North. At the Black Countr y Museum, brick terrace s, a non-conformi st chapel and various industrial buildings clu ster round a wharf on the Dudley Ca nal, where traditional cargo-carrying narrow boats can often be seen in some number.

From the functioning Victorian pub at Beamish, a whole street scene can be admired , and as the trams pas s along the cobbled roadway one is truly tran sported to an earl ier age.

Here , also, a minin g villag e has been created using authentic buildings from Count y Durham - the board school, the chapel , the mining cottage s and even the pit itself complete with spoil heaps . Nailshops and chainsh ops typify smaller industrial buildings from the Black Cou ntry north of Birmingham , and are preserved at the Avoncroft and Black Country sites. At Blists Hill a range of facsimile Victorian shops is augmented by mining scenes and a small iron foundry - and the genuine pub has sawdust on the floor.

A number of other sites are essentially in situ restoration project s. Buildings and quaysid es which bustled in the heyday of copper and tin mining have been brought back to life at Morwellham , on the Devon bank of the River Tamar,

en-air Museums 1ery and bygone ways of life, aden their scope and fields of activity.

by Dr Mike Sasse

The 'Bottle & Glass' inn comes from Brockmoor, the shops from Wolverhampton, in this street at the Black Country Museum near Dudley. and at Acton Scott Historic Working Farm in Shropshire one experiences farm life at the beginning of the 20th century.

Much further back in time, the Saxon village at West Stow in Suffolk consists of dwellings recon structed on site using the be st archaeological evidence , the whole process furthering our understanding of Saxon buildings and settlements .

The overall effect, then, of these and other museums is to pre serve buildings , artefacts and indeed entire ways of life from the past, and of late a number have featured in historic re-creation TV programmes. Many are on extensive sites

where new developments continue to broaden their scope , and most are excellent locations for photography. Volunteers in period costumes staff traditional chemists , ironmongers and other shops , provide an authentic touch in a traditional brick terrace or miner 's cottage, or maybe exercise the shire horse in a farm scene from a past age.

So one can study and admire historic structures saved from demolition , and appreciate the skills involved in preserving them for posterity, and at the same time enjoy the atmosphere of a bygone age.

The Saxon village at West Stow, Suffolk, is home to this reconstructed six-post house, with the hall beyond.

HERITAGE PHOTOGRAPHY

7

In the footsteps of the Czars

• • •

... was the title of a presentation at the Group's Annual Conference in October 2010.

It described the 445-year reign of Russia's autocratic Czars, following the crowning of Ivan Ill in 1472, and the many buildings and artefacts they left that can still be found today.

Here and on our front cover are a few of the pictures illustrating that talk.

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'Here it sh"/1 he built'. Peter I ('Peter the Great') saw Russia'.\'need for a Baltic seaport: Falconnet's statue 11·/wws him selecting the site ofwlwt was to become St Petershurg Russia' s first princes were little more than tax-collectors for the Mongolian Khans , but as such they were autocrats with absolute authority, and founded the subsequent dynasties that left their mark on Russia. There were four Ivans, including Ivan III ('The Great ') , who greatly extended Russia and

built the three cathedral s still standing within the walls of Moscow's kremlin; and six Peters . Wife of Peter III was the German Prince ss Anhalt-Zerbst Catherine the Great. Cultured , wellread and widely travelled , she brought to Russia the best of Europe·an art and architecture .

Successive Czars often sought to outshine their predecessors in grandeur . The 'Czar's Cannon' , for example, weighing 40 tons and with a 35-inch bore, was completed in 1586 on the orders of Ivan Iv, who had died the previous year.

A team of eight horses was needed to haul it.

St Basil's cathedral in Moscow was built in 1555 by Ivan IV ('The Terrible!) to commemorate victory at the battle of Kazan.

Some 150 years later, in 1733, was cast the Great Bell of A leksei Mikhailovich . It weighed 210 tons, was never hoisted nor rung, and today stands in the grounds of Moscow's kremlin.

Text and pictures : R. K. Evan s FRPS.

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