On receiving my tutor’s report I realised that I’d got back into the camera club competition mode for ‘architecture and record’, so the majority of images chosen were in this vein, showing the attributes of the buildings, rather than the remit of ‘how the buildings are being used’. When I took the images I took several in what I considered to be the ‘buildings in use’ form, so after revisiting the images and in response to my tutor’s feedback, here is the assignment again:
1. Newcastle Central Station
The first building I’m using for this assignment is Newcastle Central Station. This is a Grade 1 listed building on the East Coast railway line. This showpiece was opened by Queen Victoria on 29th August 1850. It has a neoclassical frontage and three arched spans over the train shed. These arches set the style for many railway stations across the country. The long spans over the curved platforms provide excellent lead-ins for photography.
It was modified in the late 1970’s, to include the Tyne and Wear Metro station.
There are 12 platforms. It was obviously designed with the use of steam trains in mind, hence the very high roofs. It works just as well for modern trains with the added advantage of the attractive arches and stanchions. Station shops and kiosks add to its user friendliness.
Photography is only allowed by prior arrangement and the use of tripod and / or flash is not allowed. A photography pass is needed to go through the barriers and access the platforms. The barriers and permits are new additions since my last photography session in 2007.
For this shoot I used a Nikon D200 camera with a Sigma 10 – 20 mm lens, and a Nikon D300s camera with a Nikkor 18 – 200 lens. Aperture priority and centre weighted average metering. I used 3 frames bracketing with one stop under / over exposure to give me the option of using HDR if required – I subsequently decided not to use HDR but the different exposures allowed me to choose the best images for the varied light conditions.
There was broken cloud cover which provided a diffused light – ideal for this location.
Main Concourse facing South West
Nikon D200, 10 mm (15 mm EFL), f/4, 1/320 sec
This is the view that greets us as we enter the station. Although it’s almost midday, the sunlight is entering at a very low angle which creates pleasing shadows on the roof to our right. One of the arched spans is clearly seen here and the wide concourse helps make the navigation through the station very easy.
I positioned myself to capture the clock (essential in a railway station), the information panels and passengers studying them, while keeping the curve of the roof arches as a major feature of the building.
Platform 4
Nikon D300s, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/4, 1/80 sec
This platform is dedicated to long distance trains, starting and terminating at Newcastle station – this one has just arrived from Southampton.
Again, I positioned myself to capture the passengers as they left the train, to show the station ‘in use’ while encompassing two of the arches and a suggestion of the curved platform. I particularly like the lady in the red coat as a main focus in this image.
Platform 3
Nikon D200, 20 mm (30 mm EFL), f/5.6, 1/20 sec
Passengers are awaiting the through train from Edinburgh to London Kings Cross. Looking closely at the people we can see them peering up the track for the arrival of the train, checking their watches, talking on their phones or just waiting resignedly for their journey. The curves of the arches, platform and bridges give a sense of space and distance.
I used a one stop under exposure for this image, to reduce the light at the far end of the station. Adjustment of the exposure in Lightroom, while using highlight recovery as the exposure increased, brought the image to ‘normal’ brightness.
Arrivals
Nikon D200, 10 mm (15 mm EFL), f/4, 1/125 sec
Passengers from the Edinburgh train stream across the bridge – some in a hurry to either catch another train, an appointment or just find somewhere warm! Others are just taking their time and accepting the trek as part of the journey.
The curve of the roof is an important part of the image, but the main focus is on the people as they cross the bridge. The coffee kiosk and station clock also contribute to the image of how the station works.
I think this set of images shows the station ‘in use’ while retaining the main features of the building.
2. Discovery Museum
My second venue is again in Newcastle – This time the Discovery Museum.
The building in which the Discovery Museum exists started life as the ‘Blandford House’, the former Co-operative Wholesale Society Headquarters for the Northern Region. Built in 1899, it had been the main distribution centre for over 100 co-operative stores across the region and contained extensive warehouse space and offices. The museum relocated here in 1978 having outgrown its temporary pavilion. When it was conceived, it was the only science museum outside London and celebrates the inventors and artisans of the North East.
The original building comprised a courtyard contained by warehouse / offices on three sides. The courtyard was covered and a new entrance hall built at the original ‘open’ end. The covered courtyard is now the main hall and houses the ‘Turbinia’ – the first steam turbine propelled vessel. The warehouses to the side, which originally held individual artisan workshops, are now display areas / café / study rooms. The top floor has the ‘Grand Hall’ which is available for various events ranging from weddings to examinations. The basement houses the archives, offices, freezers etc. – not normally available to the public.
I arranged with the Learning Officer to photograph within the building and was treated to a guided tour of the facility, seeing places which would not be on show to the general public. This was only available during a very quiet period, so I was unable to show people in the areas. There was a constraint on photographing people without their consent, which made it difficult for this assignment.
I again used the D200 with the 10 – 20 mm lens and the D300s with the 18 – 200 mm lens. I was allowed to use the tripod here, but no flash. I used 3 frames bracketing with one stop under / over exposure to give me the option of using HDR if required and to give me some leeway in the difficult lighting conditions.
The first image is of the main hall, taken from the top floor.
The Main Hall
D200, ISO – 200, 10 mm focal length (15 mm EFL), f/4
This wide angled view shows the covered courtyard, facing South.
On the East side the windows of what was the original courtyard wall can be seen. The 2nd floor houses the café. Both the lower floors have display areas and the ground floor has study rooms and offices.
The West side has display areas on all floors with the entrance, information and shop on the ground floor.
I used HDR for this image.
Display Area
D200, ISO – 200, 10 mm focal length (15 mm EFL), f/4, 1/20 sec
The original warehouse areas are now used for display. This one is obviously the ‘light’ display, featuring the work of the North East’s electrical inventors.
This image was under exposed by one stop and then recovered in Lightroom.
The Great Hall
D300s, ISO – 200, 36 mm focal length (54 mm EFL), f/25, 1.6 sec
This is one of the Grade 1 listed areas within the museum. It’s not on general display as part of the museum, but can be used / hired with prior agreement.
It was set out for an examination, but the snowflakes hanging from the beams indicate a much lighter use in the not too distant past. The ornate beams and Art Deco lights are testament to the way the workers at the co-operative were valued and looked after. Out of shot is a minstrels’ gallery where players would provide music for the dances here.
I again used an under exposed image and subsequent recovery in Lightroom.
I think the change of use of the building, from the Co-operative Wholesale Society Headquarters to the Discovery Museum, has been done really effectively. Many of the original parts of the interior have been retained and the museum now operates within a carefully preserved part of Newcastle’s history. The displays have been carefully and sympathetically put together and are constantly being changed (two display areas were undergoing significant redesign while I was photographing). It’s an entertaining and interesting museum.
I consider myself very lucky to have been given such an in depth tour of the building. It has many interesting features which I haven’t shown, as they’re outside the remit. It’s a shame that there weren’t people visiting the museum, so I’ve had limited opportunity to include them in the images. Each of the chosen images has a person included, but not as a main part of the image.
I’ve learned a great deal about the place, but also about taking photographs inside buildings – in particular, the use of bracketing to compensate for the changes in lighting conditions where over or underexposed images may work better or HDR techniques can be used. Long exposure noise reduction is also a useful feature when using small apertures.
3. Morrison’s Supermarket - Scarborough
The third venue is a local supermarket. This store was purpose built and first opened in 1994 and went through an extensive refit in October 2012. It’s a busy store with around 30,000 customers per week, rising to 37,000 during the summer months.
Having gained permission to photograph within the sales area (I think the manager was pleased to let his ‘new’ store be seen), I decided that the best combination was the D300s on a tripod, with the 10 – 20 mm and 18 – 200 mm lenses, using 3-frame one stop bracketing, in aperture priority and using the existing lighting.
The emphasis had been put on openness with the refit and that’s what I sought to show.
Vegetables
ISO 200, 32 mm (48 mm EFL), f/14, 0.5 sec
This new fresh vegetable display is the first thing to be seen when entering the store. The vegetables are stored over ice and the vapour is carried over them using compressed air. This keeps the produce much fresher for longer. The standard lens length has kept a perspective on this image, while the smaller aperture has given a reasonable depth of field. The fairly long exposure has caused some blurring of the people, but I think that improves the impression of a ‘busy’ store.
The Bakery
ISO 200, 14 mm (21 mm EFL), f/4.8, 1/50 sec
Another shopping area where the staff can be seen working as part of the ‘open’ store image. The wide angle lens takes gives an impression of a larger sized store. The shopper in the foreground has collected items in his trolley and he’s looking at the displays as he passes, so obviously the space is working as it was intended.
I corrected the white balance in Lightroom.
Delicatessen
ISO 200, 20 mm (30 mm EFL), f/5.6, 1/60
I cropped this image to concentrate more on the children and remove an area of open space. This gives a clearer impression of how the space is being used. Again we can see the staff at work while the children make the most of the free samples.
The image was under exposed one stop, to allow a faster shutter speed, with exposure and white balance amended in Lightroom.
Checkout
ISO 200, 10 mm (15 mm EFL), f/4
There are lots of people moving through these tills and even on a run up to Christmas the queues at the checkouts are kept to a minimum. The difference in lighting can be seen here again, as the warm lighting in the shopping area gives way to the daylight and cooler lighting as customers prepare to leave. I used HDR, from three bracketed images, to allow some correction then brought the merged image back into Lightroom for selective adjustment of the white balance in the shopping area. I straightened the image in Photoshop, using transform > perspective.
The turnover of this store testifies to the success of its presentation and I think the images show why – it’s clean, fresh and open with a sense of wellbeing. The displays are good and there’s an excellent range of products. Put that with competitive pricing (especially in Yorkshire) and you’re on a winner!
In this venue the use of one camera and only two lenses proved to be a winner. In hindsight I could have used a higher ISO to allow faster shutter speeds at smaller apertures, but I think the end results are reasonable.
4. Ruswarp Livestock Mart
The fourth building I’ve used is a Sheep pen auction shed at Ruswarp Mart.
There are three livestock pen sheds – one with steel gates and pens to herd cattle as well as sheep and two for smaller livestock (pigs, goats and sheep) which have wooden gates and pens. For this assignment I’m concentrating on only one of these sheds.
There are two types of sale here – stock sales, where the livestock is sold to go to other farms; and fat sales, where the livestock is destined for the abattoir. On the day I went to photograph the event, it was the Christmas show and fat sale.
For this venue I decided to use the D300s with the 18 – 200 VR lens, as I intended to show the interaction between farmers / butchers / auctioneers during the event. I used only natural daylight and varied the ISO as required to allow reasonably fast shutter speeds. The camera was set for 3-frame one stop bracketing in aperture priority. The bracketed images were to give some leeway in the different lighting conditions.
The strong lighting from the end of the shed meant that the images lent themselves to monochrome treatment.
To illustrate how the building functions I decided to show stages through the sale process as follows:
Waiting for the Buyers
ISO-200, 22 mm (33 mm EFL), f/4, 1/40 sec.
With the sheep settled into the pens and buyers still to arrive, all is calm. The walkway above the pens is for the use of the auctioneers when they conduct the auction. The sellers wait for the results of the judging (champions will demand a higher selling price).
This image was originally underexposed by one stop. I amended the exposure, structure and shadows / highlights in Photoshop to bring out the details in the shadow areas while controlling the highlights.
Assessing the stock
ISO-200, 170 mm (255 mm EFL), f/5.6, 1/160 sec.
A butcher assesses the muscle on the rump of a lamb while waiting for the auction to start. He’s more interested what it’ll look like when it’s skinned, not what the fleece looks like. Farmers look on with interest wondering whether their stock will make the mark.
I like the rim lighting on this image. This image shows how the pens are used for access of the buyers.
The Auction
ISO-800, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/4, 1/250 sec.
The auctioneer directs the sale from the raised walkway, while his assistant keeps control of the paperwork.
I used a wider angle for this image as I wanted to capture the livestock as well as the sale activity while showing the working parts of the building. I increased the ISO to allow faster shutter speed. This was an under exposed image which I amended in Photoshop. In hindsight I could have used a smaller aperture with a slightly slower shutter speed, but I think this image shows how the building functions.
The evolution of this market has created a building which obviously works very well. The movement of stock and buyers / sellers through the mart runs like a well-oiled machine.
I’ve learned that I still need to concentrate more on the camera settings. Altering the ISO worked well, but I could have improved things by using smaller apertures sometimes.
I’ve also learned to use a smaller selection of cameras / lenses during this type of photography. A single camera / lens and a tripod are so much easier to handle than a bag with additional equipment. Shots can often be missed while changing cameras / lenses and working in a confined space means that I could be in other peoples’ way.
5. The butchers’
At the livestock market I spoke to one of the butchers who agreed to let me photograph a pen of lambs which he bought there after they’d arrived at his shop, which is what the next venue is. This is a new set of images, taken when there was more action than in the original shoot.
The butcher’s comprises four distinct areas – the refrigerator, the butcher room, the bakery and the shop. I decided to take one image of each, to show their function. Using the D300s, with the 18 – 200 mm lens and using a bounced diffused flash in slow rear curtain mode to supplement the existing artificial lighting, I produced the following images:
The refrigerator
ISO-200, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/5, 1/13 sec.
There are carcasses of lamb, beef and pork hanging here. The consignment of pork is just arriving. .
The fill flash – set at -3.0 LV provides a little additional light. This allowed a lower ISO than the original set, with consequently less noisy images.
The VR lens enables lower shutter speeds without the use of a tripod.
The butcher’s room
ISO-200, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/9, 1/13 sec.
Next to the refrigerator is the butchers’ room. There may be up to four butchers working in this area at busy periods. Here the carcasses are cut into meal sized portions as required by the shop. During the preparations for Valentine’s Day the volume of meat orders going to restaurants has made this area much busier than it was at the last shoot.
The relatively low shutter speed has caused some blurring of the butchers due to their movement. I was trying to capture movement if the butchers’ hands, which I achieved to a degree, but didn’t consider that they’d be virtually stationary while they cut the meat – they obviously need to concentrate when they’re using very sharp knives. The fill flash has again worked well here.
As a butcher’s room it functions well. It was much lighter here than at the previous shoot, due to the brightness of the day outside.
The bakery
ISO-200, 34 mm (41 mm EFL), f/4.2, 1/15 sec.
The girls in the bakery produce their renowned pies here. Again, the relatively slow shutter speed has provided blurring of the hands as she works, but the use of fill flash has kept the rest of the image quite sharp.
The Butcher’s Shop
ISO-500, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/4.5, 1/60 sec
The fresh meat counter of the shop, where the prepared meat is displayed and sold. This shows how the way shop functions, with the display and the counter to sell their products. The presentation and cleanliness of the shop, which is always at the highest level attracts customers from miles around – these ladies always make this a priority stop when they come up from the Midlands.
I used a higher ISO here in preference to the fill flash, to avoid any distraction of the customers.
I created a sepia tinted monochrome image then a layer mask with reduced opacity to bring back some of the colour from the image below. A white vignette was then used to give the image an ‘aged’ look, which I considered appropriate for the well-established business.
As an aside, the Greek style lamb shanks are to die for!
This is only one of the displays in the shop. There are also the cooked meats (including award winning pies), fruit and vegetables and delicatessen. I’ve used Photoshop photomerge to create this panorama with enhancement using Nik HDR Efex Pro 2:
The butchers’ shop functions very well, as a high class supplier of meats, vegetables and accompaniments. It’s been a family business for 5 generations, supplying the region’s restaurants as well as us lucky locals from this shop.
It’s not been an easy venue to photograph, mainly because of the size of the rooms and the unwillingness of the staff to be photographed. I would have preferred more people to be in the images and maybe waiting longer for customers to arrive would have been better, but not all days are busy ones! – And I think I’ve shown the way the spaces are used.
6. The Baltic
It’s back to Gateshead for the final venue of this assignment. The Baltic Centre for Contemporary Arts is located on the South bank of the Tyne, adjacent to the Millenium Bridge and The Sage Gateshead. It was originally a flour mill, built for Rank Hovis to a 1930’s design, completed in 1950. It closed down in 1981. In 1991 the contract for changing its use from flour mill into a centre for art was awarded and after lengthy planning and investment of £50m, the Baltic Centre was opened in July 2002.
It has four galleries and two flexible exhibition areas, artists’ studios, and cinema / lecture hall.
Photography is allowed anywhere in the building with a student’s card. With the same two cameras / lens combinations I gained my photography permit and produced the following images:
Level 2 Gallery
D200 ISO-500, 10 mm (15 mm EFL), f/4
This exhibition – ‘The Encampment of Eternal Hope’ –is by Zoë Walker and Neil Bromwich.
Viewers of the exhibition can walk through the encampment at will without constraint (apart from handling the exhibits or using a tripod!)
I used HDR to produce this image as I felt this was the best option for the varied shadows and lighting. I adjusted the white balance during the merging, to produce colours which I considered to be ‘true’
Level 3 Exhibition Space
D200 ISO-200, 10 mm (15 mm EFL), f/22.
Taken from the entrance to one of the installations, this isn’t really a feature of the building – more a feature of what can be done within the building, as all these walls and spaces are moveable and can be repositioned wherever the exhibition requires. I took this image to use the doorway as a frame for the bigger space, deliberately positioning myself off-centre to create the perspective lines of the frame.
I used HDR again, due to the high range of tones in the image and wanting to avoid both highlight and shadows clipping.
Level 4 Exhibition Space from the Viewing Box
D200 ISO-200, 11 mm (16 mm EFL), f/4.2
Looking down from the Level 5 viewing box an excellent overview of the Level 4 exhibition space shows the scale of each floor. The display is part of the exhibition by Jim Shaw (which I’ll be visiting again as part of a study visit).
The lighting here is excellent for the display of art works but can cause highlight clipping in photographs. For that reason I used HDR techniques for this image. There is some distortion due to the lens at this height, but I think it’s acceptable for the view.
Level 4 Exhibition Space
D300s ISO-800, 18 mm (27 mm EFL), f/3.5, 1/30 sec
I took this image to show the scale of the exhibition ‘The Rinse Cycle’ by Jim Shaw. The ‘flags’ are painted on theatrical backdrops.
I adjusted the white balance to give what I considered to be an accurate depiction of the colours at the time and cropped the image to remove unwanted detail.
The images in this section have shown how the space is being used, instead of the architectural features of the building. This is because the spaces are changed for individual exhibitions with moveable walls and different areas for installations, films etc.
It’s been a more challenging assignment than I’d anticipated, but one I’ve enjoyed and learned a lot from. It’s not good that I missed the point of the assignment on the first attempt. I was too involved in the beauty of the architecture and fittings rather than ‘how the spaces are being used’ Hopefully this revisit has displayed the buildings with the correct remit!
