Please find below selection of sights and characters from a Saturday evening special event at the Black Country Museum in Dudley titled “Red By Night”. All photos were taken with my Fujifilm X-H1 with 16-55mm F/2.8 (mostly) and 16mm F/1.4 lenses.
It was a perfect late spring evening for the event as you can see from the photo above. Barely a breath of wind to disturb the reflections at the Castle Fields Boat Dock. The title of the event comes from the well known local expression “Black by Day, Red by Night” referring to the heavy industry that was a feature of the Black Country, and which is celebrated at the Museum.
One of the great highlights of the evening was to see the newly restored Steam-Powered Hammer in action. This has recently been brought back into full service following a £100,000 restoration. It was a wonderful experience to see the steam hammer in action. Here you can see a glowing lump of steel taken straight from the furnace being carefully put into place ready for the hammer.
Call me a coward but in real life I will do almost anything to avoid conflict and confrontation. So why is it that I am regularly drawn to photograph these historic battle re-enactments, you might ask? A good question, one that I occasionally ask myself!
The answer of course is very simple. These are wonderful events to photograph, the sight and sound of men and women marching into battle, the sound and smell of the gunfire, the beauty of the horses, the vibrant colours of the uniforms, the clanking of the armour, the sound of metal on metal as the army’s engage in hand to hand combat – wonderful!
So it was I found myself at Bosworth Battlefield in Leicestershire for the anniversary battle re-enactment, one of my favourite events of the year. The Battle of Bosworth on 22nd August 1485 is where Richard III lost not only the battle but also his life. His Yorkist army was defeated by the Lancastrians led by Henry Tudor (Henry VII) and this defeat effectively ended the wars of the roses. Henry was the first of the Tudors and he ruled until his death in 1509, after which he was succeeded by his second son, Henry VIII.
Of course there was much more to see at Bosworth than just the re-enactment battle itself, although that was the main set-piece event. A full timetable of events took place throughout the day including a re-enactment of the Battle of Tewkesbury in the morning.
Mounted Skills at Arms – Capturing the Ring – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
There was also a display of mounted skills at arms with riders, both men and women, pitting their skills against a variety of targets while on horseback.
Mounted Skills at Arms – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
A first for Bosworth and for me too was a display entitled “Battle of the Nations”. This comprised a number of skirmishes, in a makeshift arena, in which two or more heavily armoured men armed with swords and shields fought each other in a carefully controlled but brutal battle to put their opponent on the floor.
Battle of the Nations – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
The fighting was fast and furious in a gladiator style, the fighters laden down with all their heavy armour including heavily constructed helmets and visors.
Battle of the Nations – A Fighter takes a breather after losing his helmet – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
I can only imagine how incredibly hot and physically draining it must have been to take part in this type of battle but it certainly made for some entertaining action for the many spectators around the Bosworth main arena.
Battle of the Nations – No holds barred – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
Another popular attraction is the jousting tournament. This spectacular and occasionally dangerous pastime much loved by the knights of old is one of the highlights of the afternoon programme. The aim of the riders is to break your own lance on the shield of your opponent and points are scored for the accuracy of the hits and the amount of damage to your lance.
This year’s tournament ended in quite a spectacular but unexpected fashion when, on the very last pass of the day, the safety fence between the horses appeared to blow over as seen below. To the best of my knowledge, both horses and riders thankfully escaped without injury but I’m sure the event organisers will want to review what happened before next year’s event.
Jousting Tournament – just as the fence collapsed – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
There were also some impressive birds of prey demonstrations throughout the day but I will save those photos for a separate post. The main event was the anniversary battle re-enactment itself with Richard III leading his Yorkist army into battle for the last time against the Lancastrians led by Henry Tudor.
King Richard III addresses his troops one last time – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
A minute’s silence preceded the battle as always to remember all those who fought and died in the Wars of the Roses. Then the battle commenced and once more it didn’t disappoint.
Calm before the battle – Bosworth Battlefield Anniversary Re-enactment 2013
As mentioned earlier, for photographers like myself, these events have everything you could wish for – colour, action, movement, drama, scale, atmosphere, sometimes a little humour but always a real feeling of witnessing something rather special right in front of you.
Attempting to capture all these elements in still pictures is the challenge of course and it is not without difficulties. These battles are often unpredictable and the number of spectators dictates that you have to pick the spot where you are going to stand well in advance and stay they for the duration of the battle, come what may.
The problem comes when you find yourself in the wrong place, because the battle moved to the other end of the arena, or it passed you by quickly and left you looking only at the backs of everyone involved. This is a familiar scenario for me as this very thing happened to me only recently at Kelmarsh earlier this year during the Wars of the Roses battle. if you find yourself in the wrong place there’s very little you can do except hope that they come back to you!
Once again I had a brilliant day at Bosworth, credit must go to all the organisers and all the re-enactment groups who took part in the event for making it a day to remember.
Hopefully my photos managed to capture some of the drama and colour of the day, I know I’m reasonably happy with them. I realise these photos may not be “real life” enough for some people’s eyes but maybe that’s one of the big attractions to me of photographing this type of event – a little bit of escape from “real life”.
The rest of my photos from the day (over 400 of them) can be found on my website here.
Remember, whatever your chosen subject, enjoy your photography!
So, a change of name for this showpiece event in the English Heritage calendar, no longer the “Festival of History”, now “History Live!”. On the face of it, that was just about the only change of note to this excellent event. It was, to this paying customer at least, the same Festival of History as in previous years, just with a different name. One other change I did notice, there was no First World War trench display this year although I am told this will return in 2014 as one of many events planned to mark the centenary of the start of the Great War.
What a difference a year makes. This time last year I remember blogging about how this event, along with many others, had been cancelled due to the wettest summer for a hundred years. Fast forward twelve months and the UK is enjoying (if that’s the right expression…) a heat wave such as we haven’t seen for many years. Here in Northamptonshire we have hardly seen a drop of rain for almost four weeks and with clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid to high 20s Celsius every day for the past three weeks the ground is starting to look quite parched and brown in many places.
In the event, the weekend weather turned out to be not the clear blue skies and souring temperatures of the previous few days but much cooler, cloudier and quite overcast at times. I can imagine this would a great relief to the re-enactors in their uniforms, many of which include both chain mail and/or heavy armour, not to mention helmets, weapons and various other pieces of kit which required to represent the chosen period with authenticity.
Regular readers of this blog will know that “cloudy bright” is my very favourite lighting for outdoor people photography, the clouds forming a massive diffuser to spread the light evenly over the subject without creating harsh shadows or highlights. In particular, photographing people wearing hats can be especially problematic in strong sunlight due to the harsh shadows created under the brim. In these conditions I usually resort to fill-flash (which is so easy with modern cameras) to avoid hard shadows obscurring the eyes.
On the Saturday, the light was actually rather poor for much of the day. I shoot Aperture Priority (Av on Canon DSLRs) almost all of the time so I have full control over depth of field. However, I had to constantly keep an eye on my shutter speed and subsequently adjust the ISO upwards if it started to fall below 1/320 second (I was using my trusty EF 80-200mm MDP lens for the event and 1/250 is absolutely the slowest shutter speed I want to go with this lens unless deliberately panning). I also took the Canon 40mm “pancake” lens for the wider shots. It’s a great little lens with surprising performance for something so tiny.
Below is a small selection of the photos I took on the day, including the Hawker Hurricane flypast. I have just started uploading some of my other photos from this event to my website here.
Here’s just a few of my favourite photos from the 1940s event last weekend at the Great Central Railway in Leicestershire. As usual, I went with my good friend Barry on the Saturday, to be honest I was feeling a little tired after a long day at my sister-in-law’s wedding the day before.
As soon as we arrived we were immediately aware that it was going to be a busy day with lots of people having turned out to see the event. I had decided the night before to take just my longer lens, a Canon 80-200mm F/2.8 L (a.k.a. The Magic Drainpipe), and leave my standard zoom (28-70mm) at home. The longer zoom is perfect for head & shoulders portraits and I also had in mind the possibility of a fly-past at some point in the day but this turned out to be only on the Sunday.
The problem with taking only the longer lens, is that it requires a certain distance between the photographer and subject in order to get good framing and a little bit of variation in composition.
Now this is fine as long as there are not too many people and other photographers about but can be a bit tricky when there are lots of people around and lots of photographers with shorter lenses trying to get the same shot as me but from a closer range. On the positive side, the longer lens can be used to “isolate” the subject from the surroundings and can also provide a more diffused background than with a standard zoom.
Well, I can’t hardly believe how long it has been since I updated this blog. In fact, my last post was at the end of August following the battle re-enactment at Bosworth. So, what’s been happening while I have been away I hear you ask? Well, not a lot really in terms of my photography, hence the extended break. However, I have attended 5 University open days with my daughter Sophie over this period, all of which I have really enjoyed, but which have taken up quite a lot of my spare time, particularly at weekends.
Alan at Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
Back in June, my good friend Barry and I were approached by someone whilst visiting the Great Central Railway 1940s weekend asking if we would be interested in attending a special photographer’s event at Tutbury Castle in Staffordshire. It was short notice but we decided to give it a go and it turned out to be a very interesting day with a number of models dressed in a variety of costumes at this excellent location.
Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
When I heard that Tutbury Castle were planning a similar event in October, to run from 2pm in the afternoon all the way to 9pm at night, and with a medieval theme, I knew I had to get a ticket. I was delighted that five other members from Desborough and Rothwell Photographic Society also made it over for the event, along with myself and Barry.
Dawn at Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
I love doing people pictures as you know but my natural shyness occasionally stops me from approaching people at events and getting the shots I would like. The opportunity to photograph “models” in historic outfits who were there for the sole purpose of being photographed is surely every photographer’s dream.
Alan at Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
The opportunity of taking photos during the evening, at dusk, and then by floodlight was an added attraction for this event and made it extra special. I must also congratulate Lesley Smith, the curator at Tutbury Castle, not just for organising the event, but also for being the star attraction, first as Queen Bodicea and later as Nell Guinn. Lesley certainly throws herself 100% into the characters she portrays , which also included Queen Elizabeth I back in June.
Lesley as Queen Bodicea at Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
The day ended with a photo shoot in the Great Hall with only candle light for illumination. This turned out to be a source of some disagreement between the photographers attempting to take the shots, some equipped with tripods and looking to take a long exposure, whilst others without tripods had to use flash to supplement the candle light in order to get a sharp image.
Dusk at Tutbury Castle Medieval Photographer's Day, October 2011
The source of the “conflict” was that the flashes from the tripod-less photographers was affecting the exposures of the tripod users who were shooting long exposures (several seconds I would guess) in order to get their shots by candle light alone. In the end the flashers, including myself I must confess, were asked to pause while the tripod users took some shots sans flash.
Lesley by candle light (and bounced flash!), the Great Hall, Tutbury Castle, October 2011
As always, the photos here represent only a small portion of the images taken on the day. I have posted many more over on my website. I do hope that Tutbury Castle will be planning some more photographer’s days for next year. From the feedback I have heard, everyone that attended had a brilliant day.
Last weekend was the occasion of the Battle of Bosworth Anniversary Re-enactment. The Bosworth Battlefield Heritage Centre near Market Bosworth in Leicestershire was the venue for this event.
The King addresses his soldiers before the battle, Bosworth Battlefield 2011
The Battle of Bosworth took place here in 1485 and the battlefield at Bosworth is famous as the place where King Richard III was defeated and lost his life and his crown to Henry Tudor, the first of the Tudor dynasty.
Receiving orders before the battle – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
This battle followed the “Wars of the Roses”, a series of battles between two rival dynasties, the white rose of York and the red rose of Lancaster, for the control of the English throne. Between 1454 and 1471 the houses of Lancaster and York fought thirteen battles with the Yorkist Edward IV winning the eventual victory.
Marching into battle – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
Richard III was Edward’s youngest brother and succeeded him to the throne in 1483. Just 2 years later, he rode into battle at Bosworth in Leicestershire on the 22nd August 1485 where he met his death and lost his crown to Henry Tudor.
Man to man combat – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
If you are a fan of Shakespeare, you will recall that the bard immortalised King Richard III as he lay defeated on the battlefield with the famous line: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse.”
No quarter asked for or given – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
I must admit, this was not the easiest assignment I have been on. The battlefield itself was surrounded by tents and spectators on all sides making backgrounds a problem. The other problem is that you can only ever be in one place at once so of course you can only photograph what is in front of you.
A pause for refreshment – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
As it happened I was quite well placed for both of the day’s big battles and hopefully managed to capture some of the atmosphere and action of the day. The living history encampments at either end of the main arena provided further photo opportunities throughout the day.
After the battle – Bosworth Battlefield 2011
I have posted many more photos from the day, including the excellent Jousting Tournament, over on my website
Photographer Geoff Oliver 