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This has to be one of my favourite historical places around Portsmouth - a Victorian Fort used as a museum for The Royal Armouries - a collection of guns, cannons, artillery and other stuff for hurling lumps of steel and explosive at someone.

Anyway, I'd been looking forward to doing a Photowalk here for ages, and today's stroll didn't disappoint, great weather (if a little bright) and hardly anyone else in the Fort. I've even had a go at doing my first video - apologies in advance for the audio and video quality!






My original idea for the video was to talk about angles, technique and composition, but I'm afraid it turned into a bit of a history lesson! I did it all off the cuff and wasn't sure what I'd be talking about before I started... next time it will be more related to photography. Lets look at the photo's I took. (Please click on the pictures to go to Flickr and see the larger versions.)


I got to Fort Nelson really early, well before it opened, so I took a walk around the outside of the Fort, luckily there's a public footpath that starts near this monument to the great English Admiral. I had to stand on the far side of the road to get this image, and was trying to imply that this memorial is forgotten, that a monument to one of Britain's greatest men is ignored by the thousands of people who pass it everyday.


As I was following the footpath I came across a really friendly group of horses, this one caught my eye and I tried to bring out his glorious coat in the post processing in Photoshop. I had several other worthy shots - remember that these are my best efforts only, I probably took around 150 frames on the day - so always take as many pictures as you can, making your own "Photographers Luck".


The first picture of the fort, and a Panorama to boot. You've really got to click on the picture and go through to Flickr to look at the larger size to see it properly. This was hand-held, leaning right up against the barbed-wire fence that stops you falling into the moat or gorge. I was just lucky that there was a break in the bushes at this point so I could almost get head-on.


Surrounding the Fort to the North are corn fields, and I was taken with the contrast of the green fields with the pylon. I tried to line everything up with the rule of thirds, using HDR and a Grad to bring out the details in the sky.


Another Pano, this time of the huge Mortar near the entrance to the Fort. The cannon balls have become distorted by the perspective during the process in Photoshop CS3, but I could sort it out with some extra work. I should also have moved to the left slightly to put some air between the Mortar and the ammunition.


This photo was taken in the tunnels under the main parade ground, deep in the chalk of Portsdown Hill. It shows a view up a spiral staircase, taken with the on-camera flash of my S5700. I had to clone out a spar running across the image, which blew-out with the brightness of the flash, but as usual PS made it easy.


Taken in the main tunnel corridor, I was faced with a dilemma. The museumm didn't allow tripods, so I took some hand-held shots with and without flash. This was taken without flash, so is pretty soft. In hindsight I should have rested my camera on the ground on top of my bag, then it would have been much better.


Taken inside the ground floor of the North Caponier, this actually isn't my favourite shot of that area. Once I'd taken a few frames, I tried exposing for the window (which was bright) then using a forced flash to lighten up the main subject, the cannon. However, the guns I tried this on were missing their "end plugs" so the final pictures didn't look quite right when I examined them at home.


A view from the cannon, with my camera resting on the top. Whenever I'm using a tripod or some sort of support, and it's a landscape type shot, I always try to tighten down the aperture of the lens to try and get a larger depth of field so more of the scene is in focus.


A nice shot of the Gorge, or dry moat, with the camera resting on the wall. Another HDR, with a grad too. Sometimes, as is the case with this image, I get caught between two styles - the sky is dark and moody, yet the colours are over saturated (with LAB), maybe I should have gone for a more monochrome or b&w look.


Pano from the top of the ramparts looking at the parade ground. The brown blobs are sand-bags, left over from a re-enactment a couple of weeks before.


Next we have some more gun emplacement shots, HDR's:











I liked the way these two weapons seemed to be facing off against each other. I tried to get an angle where you couldn't see the building, but there just wasn't enough room.



The last few frames were taken inside the artillery hall. I tried a couple of macros here too - the search-light, dial and the shell. The shell was being held by a naff looking dummy, but by getting around to look over his shoulder I think an interesting angle was achieved.



















Phew! So there it is, my Photowalk around Fort Nelson. No .kmz file I'm afraid, it took me so long to do the video and the larger than normal number of photo's that I just didn't have the time, but if you do click through to Flickr you can see them Geotagged on their map.

Looking back, I should have done some black and white shots in Photoshop, and I can't believe I didn't take a shot looking down the barrel of one of the cannons from the opposite end... Next time.

Thanks, Rob.