Night at the Tank Museum 2 - this time we're indoors!
22nd October 2021
Robert and I headed to the Tank Museum at Bovington for a second opportunity to photograph tanks in the dark. After how much fun we had last time, we managed to drag my dad along, as well as Robert's son-in-law, Dan, and his mate Ashley.
Click here for Night at the Museum 1, out in the arena!
Last time was curtailed by storms coming in (standing outside next to large metal boxes amidst a lightning storm seemed a little foolhardy!), so this time they arranged it to be inside the museum. This was really good in some ways but a bit challenging in others. I think we all appreciated being in, out of the cold, but you can't get away from the fact that there is a lot of 'stuff' around the tanks. The museum staff did their best to move some of the explanation plaques and displays, but there are big backdrops and things on the walls that just couldn't be moved. Don't get me wrong, the exhibits and displays are brilliant if you're there looking round the museum, but we've been plenty of times and we just wanted to take pretty pictures!
The idea was that the lights would be off and the tanks would be illuminated by some posh LEDs. This added a different dimension to last time when we were outside - we only managed to shoot in daytime and twilight before the storm came in, so no illumination required. This time, we had to think about long exposure times and tripods to get the best out of it. That was a new challenge for me, and was really good to play around with different settings on the camera to get different results.
I do think, though, that the lighting could have been a bit more dynamic. I heard some people talking about making the light nice and neutral, avoiding shadows and all that - what's the point in that?! We're in the dark, I WANT to see some interplay of light and shadow, I want the tanks to look dynamic and imposing with stark highlights on bits of them. If I wanted to photograph them in nice balanced light wouldn't it be better to do it during the day? (apart from all the museum-goers getting in the way of the shots)
So, I think the evening was great, but could certainly do with some improvement.
- Some backdrops would be good, if they could hang some big black curtains behind the tanks to hide the displays and unsightly walls, that would be great. Doesn't have to be a perfectly flat background, just dark so the tanks pop out when lit up
- Use some more illumination in interesting places. A couple of the tanks had lights underneath - do more of that! Put lights inside them or under the tracks, get some interesting shapes and shadows going on.
- Maybe try some different coloured lights, I think again it's a good opportunity to do something interesting and different.
- Perhaps try and get things even darker from the ambient lights, so the spotlights are more effective - the light from the café in particular was a bit challenging to work with.
- Finally, it was a little unclear which tanks we were 'supposed' to be shooting, especially because they weren't quite ready when we started. I can appreciate the difficulty of setting it up to start almost straight after closing the museum, but it seemed to be a better set-up when it was outside.
Overall, it really was a great evening and I would be keen to do it again. The guys that do it apparently do a lot of the same sort of thing with planes (seems that this and the last one were the first events at the Tank Museum), so maybe shooting some planes next time would be fun!
I've put a selection of my favourite photos that I took below. I have done no messing about on the computer to any other them, other than a little bit of cropping here and there - the photos are just as they come out of the camera. I think there are some pretty good ones here. I did shoot a few other tanks (Cromwell, M48 Patton, Saladin armoured car), but wasn't happy with the results, so there's definitely a reason to go back in the future!
Tiger 131
This is the only working Tiger I in the world, famed for its appearance in the movie Fury and for just being an iconic tank. It was captured by the British in Tunisia during World War II.
I really like this tank, the design is pretty iconic and it was a technological masterpiece in its day. It has a lot of interesting angles that catch the light and cast shadows, I just wish it was more in the open so we could try more shots from different places. There was a (somewhat wobbly) gantry to stand on that allowed us to get some overhead shots, which was good. I think I got some nice shots of the beast!
Leopard 1
A post-war tank that was developed in West Germany during the 1950's before entering service in the '60's, drawing on a lot of the experience from World War II. The design criteria was to make a faster, more lightly-armoured tank.
I think it looks great up on these ramps. It was a challenge to frame it without too much stuff behind it, but I think it worked pretty well. I quite like the ominous shadows in some of the photos I took, it felt quite dramatic and evocative.
Chieftain
Not sure I really did this one justice, but I was struggling to get a good angle on it that didn't have a bit green sign behind it! The Chieftain was a pretty significant tank for the British, being our main battle tank from the 1960's to 1990's. I'd like the opportunity to take some better pictures of this one in the future.
Churchill
An early World War II British tank, obviously named after the man himself, it did a lot of heavy lifting during the war. This particular one is a Mark VII, and has a brass plaque on it to commemorate the fact it was the last one ever built! In fact, this one is the Crocodile variant of the Churchill, which included a pretty fearsome flamethrower on it. I didn't manage to get any photos of the fuel tank unfortunately.
I quite like this one being lit from underneath, it was something a little different to do. I also liked how the big track guards at the front ended up making some huge, deep shadows - really highlighted the shape of the tank. If I had got the camera a little higher on the first picture so the light wasn't directly visible, that might have looked a bit better. Oh well.
Panzer II
Developed by the Germans during the 1930's when they were building up their forces (against the diktat of the Treaty of Versailles that forbade them from producing armoured cars and tanks), the Panzer II was a light tank designed as a development of the Panzer I to enable some limited anti-armour capability.
I think this is an interesting little tank, and the light threw some good shadows, particularly around the tracks. Apparently, the tank plans were 'hidden' as a schematic for a tracked agricultural vehicle, which might explain the size of the vehicle and some of the design choices. Again, too much stuff around it, but it was fun playing with the light on this one. This was the first one I was shooting, so I was really getting my eye in. Probably should have gone back to it at the end, but there we go!
Panther
This Panther is quite notorious for its unusual camo scheme (done this way to save on paint towards the end of the war), but for me it was a real challenge to photograph because of the lights from the café that were shining behind it. In some ways, I kind of like the effect that created, but ultimately I think it would be better if they could do something to block that light off a bit.
It's an enormous tank, though the Germans categorised it as a 'Medium Tank' - more a reflection of it's battlefield role and capabilities rather than its size and weight (something like 44 tonnes!). Very imposing, difficult to get a good angle on it in the museum though. Not my best photos but I was pleased to be able to get these given the conditions.
Vickers Medium Mk II
This was an early post-World War I British tank, designed for increased manoeuvrability and the ability to fire on the move. There wasn't a huge drive for thick armour in the 1920's as there wasn't much in the way of anti-tank firepower, so it only needed to shrug off small arms fire. It was a mainstay in the British army through to the start of World War II, when it got replaced by newer designs. There were still some knocking about, being used for training mostly. Compared to later tanks, it's fairly crude, but I think that gives it some interesting lines and shapes that catch the light in interesting ways - particularly as the spotlight was hitting it fairly hard from one side.
Medium Mark A, 'Whippet'
Named for it's speed, this was a British World War I tank that was designed to complement the bigger, slower tanks that were already in use. It could speed forwards at a smidge over 8mph, not so quick compared to later tanks but probably more than uncomfortable enough due to the lack of suspension!
I really like the original World War I tanks, they have a lot of character, and this one is an interesting evolution of that design. There was one spotlight shining at it, with a Mark II just behind it, so I thought it looked quite cool with catching that light, but maybe not - I tried having it with the light in and with it cropped out to see what looked better! Really interesting looking tank.
Sherman M4A4 Firefly
A variant of the classic American World War II tank, developed to have a more reliable engine and bigger gun. Apparently the British troops liked to hoard these when they came over, preferring them over the other versions.
I found this one really hard to get a good angle on, there was so much going on in the background. And, to be honest, I had been much more excited getting photos of 'Fury' last time (another Sherman variant, but a celebrity so clearly more exciting), so wasn't quite as enthused by this one. I think the light from the café was, again, making this one a challenge. It's a shame, I'd like another opportunity to get some better lighting on this one and try again. But I think I got one acceptable photo of it.
T-62
A Soviet tank from the 1960's that was an evolution of the T-55 series and designed to be a slightly smaller and lower-weight kind of tank - still looked pretty big to me! I thought this one would really have benefited from a dark backdrop and a bit more dramatic lighting. It has that big, imposing barrel, but an interesting one to light and photograph with that pale armour.
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