In May 2008 I got a call from one of my clients: The Royal Armouries who asked me to quote for a job of photographing all the King Henry armours held by the Royal Armouries in The Tower of London and their main museum site in Leeds. This sounded like a great job and quite special, some of the armour had not been photographed for over twenty years! So, I put in a quote as part of a legal tender process and fingers crossed, hoped I would get the commission. I had worked in the Armouries before for various publishers and for them directlys, so I had lots of experience photographing lots of shiny swords, guns and arrmour. A few weeks past before I got a phone call to say that I had got the job. I was pretty excited at the challenge ahead! The brief entailed photography for a ‘coffee table’ type book that would coincide with a year long exhibition of Henry at the Tower of London called; “Dressed To Kill”. This was to commemorate 500 years since Henry was crowned King of England. Further usage of the pictures would be for exhibition display and for merchandise. The criteria was also to create a ‘ fashion ‘ look for the images, as the exhibition was based around Henry as a highly fashionable man, which was reflected in his armour and clothing. We thought the best way to achieve this was to get away from the more conventional way of photographing museum artefacts and instead use more ‘drop focus’ and more ‘ back lighting’ with black backgrounds, so the armour would stand out.
Work begins at The Tower Of London
The photography was arranged for early July, where I would have a week and a bit for photographing two complete suits of armour and all the additional pieces including helmets, small arms, swords. It was certainly going to be challenging! As usual budgets dictated the amount time allocated for photography. At the beginning of the week I arrived at the Tower with a considerable amount of equipment, and was shown a room which had been used for storage. My heart sank as there was no way I could photograph full armour let alone some of the weapons in here, not only was it tiny but it had a ceiling height of only about 1.8 Metres. After some discussion with the Designer and Art Director it was agreed that we needed somewhere substantially larger. Space is a premium in the Tower Of London and the only possible place that I could work in would be in The White Tower, which is the oldest and the most original part of the Tower, which is a Norman Keep. Henry’s armour and trimmings were all on display in here so at least they would not have to travel far to photographed. even so, this was still a big undertaking as the this building was being visited by thousands of tourists a day. I must say the staff at the Tower were extremely resourceful and motivated and in no time had cordoned off half of the middle floor for the photography, yet still tourists could flow past and watch us all at work! We had to put up some screens as it was felt that the flash photography could be a health risk for any who was susceptible to epilepsy. The area allocated for the photography was huge! With really high ceilings and quite dark with overhead spotlights. Although I now had a fantastic working space, the flash would dissipate quite quickly in such a large space. I decided that the way forward was to build a mini studio inside the room. After many trips to the car and climbing 3 flights of stairs we finally got all the equipment into the room. I had brought with me several very large white nylon sheets with me. These are extremely useful when photographing very large objects on location which need to be cut out. But, on this occasion they would be used to ‘contain’ the flash. We acquired some moveable scaffold and proceeded to tie chord around large wooden timbers in the room. Next we attached the cloth to the chord with small bulldog clips and we created a 3 sided ‘room’. Next lights went up which was an assortment of softboxes, honeycombs and bareheads with standard reflectors. By the time all this was completed the day was over, next day the photography would begin!
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View of set, showing full armour of Henry the Eighth ready to be photographed
Final image of Henry The Eighth armour on black background
The first armour we photographed was known as Henry’s ‘Silver and Grey’ which was the earliest surviving armour of his, from the period in which Henry was very slim and trim! It was mounted on a horse and so we planned to photograph in the same way as the old wooden frame underneath the armour was set in that position. To access the armour and horse, the curator had to remove a very large glass panel as it was located inside a large glass case. When things like this are removed , there can be various problems. The removal of the glass went without without a hitch. But then, disaster nearly struck as they tried to remove the paper mache horse from its mount. This horse was made in the 1920’s and was the worse for wear, as they started to move it from its mount the horse started to break up. The curator was extremely worried and would not allow the removal of the horse from the case. We were now left in a situation in which we had the armour but no mount! I had a little think and proposed that we mounted the armour on a high stool which would be secured by one of my flash packs and a magic arm! The curator agreed and we tested the set up before standing away from the armour which was mounted complete with saddle and stirrups. This was not an ideal situation as we had to be very careful of our composition and keep the shots relatively tight. More importantly we were dealing with a national treasure something that was basically priceless. so I was grateful that the staff had every confidence in my work around!
The Armour on its 'mount' Notice 'blind' Art Director!
The lighting was put into place around the armour and a black velvet background was put behind the armour. The process now was to get the lighting balanced. In all there were 5 to 6 lights used depending on the angle and size of shot. The main lights were large softboxes that were bounced off large reflector screens and then diffused through translucent screens. This really soaked up the light and each light was on maximum power from the packs at 3000 joules each. The smallest aperture at 125 ISO was f16. This was not such an issue as we wanted some drop focus. The other lights were used for picking up highlights on the edge of the armour and comprised of strip lights and honeycombes. Again they were diffused through diffusion screens. The problem with armour is that is very reflective and easily burns out, so softening the light is a necessity. The balance is holding detail but at the same time not lighting too ‘flat’. I always start with the general lighting, then gradually introduce effects lights to ‘enhance’ the subject. This particular suit of armour was not the shiniest, so I could work with slightly harder light sources, unlike some of the pieces I would have to photograph later on. A variety of shots were achieved and by the end of the day had photographed this suit of armour.
Detail of silvered inlay, most of which has now been worn away
Up In Leeds
A few weeks later I had a week to finish off the armours up in Leeds. Here, things were a little bit easier, a fully functional photographic studio meant that I did not have to ‘build’ a set for the armour. With white walls and a grey floor, the lighting was a lot easier to control. More importantly because I could black out the space, I could gain a smaller aperture by switching off the lights and multi flashing. This was impossible at the Tower of London as the overhead spotlights were permanently on. Therefore, having the shutter open for a long period for multi flashing would have been a big problem as the spotlights would have recorded and effected the lighting of the armour. We photographed two suits of armour and accessories over the week. These were very shiny. Therefore, I used a roll of Tough Rollux. This was used around a frame and the armour was placed inside it. Very shiny objects act like mirrors, so you need to reflect something onto it, otherwise it just photographs black when using flash, The opposite problem is that if it picks up any direct light sources then it will burn out. So the Rollux was used to help solve this problem. Lots of white paper was used in strategic positions to lift the armour as necessary. Again, lots of indirect lighting was used to keep the lighting ’soft’ enough for the armour. Of course this resulted in flash power being reduced considerably and multi flashing was essential to gain the necessary flash output
If you look at the picture below, you will get a good idea of how the lighting was set up.
Field of Gold Tournament Armour on set
Notice the paper on the one side which was used to reflect onto the armour, the same would be applied to the other side before photographing
Curator and Designer putting armour together on set
Field Of Gold Armour
'Holding on to' Henry's famous codpiece on Articulated Armour. Armour being put into position
