After seeing it advertised on the camera club website, I recently visited the Chiltern Open Air Museum for a 'Ragged Victorians' event. This promised costumed re-enactors around the Museum site. 'Shady characters including the rat catcher and his rats; street urchins, rogues and vagabonds'. Re-enactors are always great value. They are more than happy to pose and tremendously knowledgeable about their chosen period. This group were very specific to their time-frame. 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition and the first national census. 1851 also saw the first publication of 'London Labour and the London Poor' by Henry Mayhew. This was a 3 volume collection of articles, originally published in the 1840s for the Morning Chronicle, in which Mayhew observed, documented and described the state of working people in London. Mayhew went into great detail about the trades, habits, religion and domestic arrangements of the thousands of people working the streets of the city. One of the re-enactors told me that when people join the group they are encouraged to find a person described by Mayhew, who resonates with them, and to research and develop that character.
While re-enactors are happy to pose, they do tend to have their 'pose'. A particular one that they have adopted over the years and it is difficult to break them out of. But in the case, I wanted the final images to have the look of an old Daguerreotype, so the stiff poses worked. I did all of the conversions in Nik Analog Efex Pro 3. The later images were getting closer to what I wanted, but I may well have another go sometime. I have included the colour versions, as I thought it was a shame not to show the costumes in all their glory.
Because posed images can be a little stiff, I always look for candid shots as well. In this case there were some kids who, with a little patience and perseverance, made for some great shots. (Side note: Re-enactments are the only time I am comfortable photographing children. I have never met an re-enactor yet who wasn't happy to let me take shots of their dressed up kids.) These shots were too naturalistic for the Daguerreotype treatment. But I do think the first looks better in mono. It is probably my favourite shot of the day.
