| Joined: | Thu Apr 19th, 2012 |
| Location: | United Kingdom |
| Posts: | 4428 |
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Thank you for the kind words.
Eric is, or was a National Trust member I think, so he visits more properties than I do but I know many places prohibit photography. The NT seems to overplay it's guardianship role in matters like this. One of the reasons I have been given is that the mass, general public tend to use fully auto cameras which are incapable of getting an image without flash. Flash is said to degrade the fine wood which is used in these properties. The UV output is fairly high and I suppose if uncontrolled the surfaces of paintings and wooden furniture might be affected. All the Southerly aspect windows are heavily protected with yellow fabric blinds.
Also the security aspect is a real concern, Ham House and many similar historic houses are laden with high profile art probably of great value and irreplaceable. Thieves have been known to go around photographing target items prior to stealing them.
This is one of the superb marquetry tables which is of stunning quality, one of Christophers shots. No flash, hand held 1/40 sec @ f7.1 ISO 6400, with the D3300 and a battered 18-105 VR lens. It was a seriously underexposed JPEG, I managed to recover it to some extent in Lightroom.
You could have got that in the back of the car!
Lovely piece of work.
A lot of the time we go to their properties just for the gardens. The main problem is the part time 'wardens' they have stood in every room. Admittedly many are knowledgeable and will engage with you if you ask questions. But it's difficult to get away from the feeling they are guarding their possessions from 'you thieving public'....and their helpfulness is limited.
In stark contrast Jan and I went to the less we'll known French chateau..Chateau Montgeofrrey...this year. We like to find the smaller ones as they can be more interesting than over the top possessions of the Sun King!
We arrived early and in fact when the first guided tour was scheduled to start, were the only ones there! A UK place would have said you must wait till more people come to make it worthwhile for them. But a charming young lady (who we had earlier watched opening every single one of the 20 front window shutters to the baking sun!!) took us on a personal tour. Not only that....to prove that the many restorations of the wallpapers and fabrics were authentic in design, she took us into a dark bedroom, where visitors don't normally go, opened the shutters in that room and revealed an absolutely authentic, 17th century bedroom...untouched apart from a bit of dusting for years, maybe centuries. A marvellous, yet somewhat spooky, experience but something they were prepared to do for two English tourists.
Last edited on Sun Aug 27th, 2017 05:26 by Eric
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Eric