Keep The Home Fires Burning

The photos from my Easter visit to the 1940’s Home Front event at Crich are now uploaded.  Rather than photograph a 1940’s event in the present day, I wanted to assemble an album of images depicting wartime life as if I had actually been there at the time – which, contrary to appearances, I was not.  At least, I don’t think I was.

Photographing early in the day was quite straightforward as the majority of people at opening time were in period dress, but as the morning wore on the number of present-day people steadily increased, and crept into view with maddening frequency.  This naturally made taking authentic shots more tricky, particularly as the people who did make it into view tended to be the – ah – less photogenic members of society.  In most cases some judicious cropping or minor editing got rid of the problem, and a large number of pictures had to be dumped altogether.  What remains is a reflection of life in the UK in a typical town and surrounding countryside.

The album clearly shows the amount of hard work and dedication that goes into creating these events.  Many pictures were un-posed, fly-on-the-wall type shots to capture people simply going about their business, chatting, working or troops in training.  The trams and buildings helped create the illusion and set the scene for most photos.  I edited the whole set in black and white to give it a period feel, which also disguised some contemporary items that couldn’t be removed from otherwise pleasing images.  The album may be seen here.