Photographing Blackmore Farm, Nr Bridgwater
I arrived at Blackmore Farm around 9am, a beautifully restored and renovated 15th century manor house, mentioned in the Domesday Survey of A.D. 1085 and today also serving as a farm, cafe, B&B and shop that would make a lovely retreat or day out for anyone visiting and exploring around the Quantocks or Exmoor once we are out of lockdown. The property’s owner Ian was incredibly friendly and knowledgeable, with his family having acquired the farm back in 1952.
When I entered the building into the Great Hall with a long dining table I was amazed at the number of items Ian has collected for the house to help give it a sense of a long bygone era, perhaps not as old as the 15th century but there are items that are several hundred years old and the armoured knight standing proud next to a roaring fireplace certainly helps to transport your imagination back to a time well before mobile phones and instant messaging (although all this can be done here in comfort, just incase you start searching for your quill, ink and parchment).
The Great Hall is brilliantly decorated and captures the feeling of a time long before us all.
This was the first time I had properly used my new wide angle tilt shift lens and I had a lot of fun experimenting with tripod height and position to change compositions, on many occasions I took many images by tilting the lens from the ceiling to floor and merging the single images later in Adobe Lightroom, this gave me the freedom to crop images and having the option to go back and retrieve the rest of the image if needed later on. This, combined with using the camera’s in built HDR software allowed me to straighten vertical lines and keep the exposure as balanced as possible, even though this was still quite tricky in naturally dark rooms like the Great Hall, I may have to experiment with additional lighting in the future. In some rooms however, such as the pantry and chapel the lighting was lovely and even due to the light coloured walls around.
The lighting in the pantry and chapel was much easier for taking balanced, well exposed photographs.
Photographing one of the upstairs bedrooms and converted loft was another challenge, with very strong sunlight streaming through the windows to beautifully illuminate fabric details on the bed and pieces of furniture, however to stop the highlights from the direct sunlight completely blowing out meant that i lost some detail in the shadows that i did manage to retrieve in post production, however not enough to reduce contrast quite enough for my liking. This is a learning curve for me and not something I am worried about going forward as I build up my skillset and techniques for dealing with these type of lighting challenges.
After the main ‘wide angle vista’ shots I swapped lenses to my 28-80mm and started snapping some of the beautiful objects and ornaments to be found around the place, this was a lot of fun and a welcome break from tripod shooting and agonising about perfect compositions and exposure bracketing.
Close up of the chess board and pieces found in the converted loft.
At around 3.30pm my battery had nearly died (I really need to invest in a back up for all day photo shoots!) and it was time for me to go home. I thoroughly enjoyed my day shooting this magnificent manor house, it was a real privilege and I will return in the summer to take some exterior shots including the garden in full bloom which I am very much looking forward to.
Why not have a look at Blackmore Farm as an option to stay at or visit if you are visiting Somerset? Here is a link to their website http://blackmorefarm.co.uk/