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Beamish - a 'living museum'
Situated just south of Newcastle, Beamish is a 'living Victorian museum' and it is also an ideal location for photography with a wide range of possible subjects.
Visiting there recently with members of my camera club, the only real problem was the weather - it was exceptionally lovely and the strong sunshine made the light very contrasty and bright, which wasn't ideal in photographic terms.
Because of this, I ended up focussing on internal shots within the numerous buildings which make up the various parts of the place.
These buildings included a colliery and mine, school house, dwelling cottages, church, town centre, pub, bank, masonic hall, shops, manor house and farm - and all of them exactly as they would have been in Victorian times.
In many of the buildings, the only light was provided by oil lamps - this meant that even using a wide aperture and tripod, exposure times were in excess of ten seconds; and for some of the portrait shots, this was simply too long and the shots were unusable. However, straight interior shots at these exposure lengths were fine and had a nice atmosphere.
My two favourite images of the day were a portrait of a chambermaid polishing furniture inside the manor house, and a servant making Maslin Bread - a mixed loaf of wheat, rye and barley. I felt that these two shots captured the atmosphere of Beamish fairly well.
I still have a number of other interior images to process, and one shot I have shows some possibility but I need to work on it first.
I recommend a trip to Beamish, but choose your time well - preferably at the start of the day and with overcast (rather than very sunny) weather.
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