This weekend I paid a visit to Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire. I have intended to visit this place for some time as a kind of pilgrimage. For this is where William Henry Fox Talbot developed the calotype process from which modern photography developed (pardon the pun).
Below is an excerpt from Wikipedia:
Talbot engaged in photographic experiments before 1839, when Louis Daguerre exhibited his pictures taken by the sun. After Daguerre's discovery was announced (without details), Talbot showed his four-year old pictures at the Royal Institution on 25 January 1839. Within a fortnight, he freely communicated the technical details of his photogenic drawing process to the Royal Society. Daguerre would not reveal the manipulatory details of his process until August. In 1841 Talbot announced his discovery of the calotype, or talbotype, process. This process reflected the work of many predecessors, including John Herschel. Talbot's original contributions included the concept of a negative from which many positive prints can be made (although the terms negative and positive were coined by Herschel), and the use of gallic acid for developing the latent image. In 1842, for his photographic discoveries, which are detailed in his The Pencil of Nature (1844), he received the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society.
The earliest known surviving negative is of a lattice window in Lacock Abbey and is housed at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television in Bradford.
Possibly the first photograph, how many taken since?
Although there was a small museum dedicated to Fox Talbot there weren't as many exhibits as I had imagined there would be, so in that respect I was perhaps a little disappointed. I guess I will need to go to the National Museum of Photography in Bradford at some stage.
I was unable to photograph the actual window from inside the house so I had to content myself with taking my picture from outside. It was extremely busy and I had to wait for some time in order to get a shot without any tourists spoiling the composition. I should point out that I don't consider myself to be a tourist, I of course am an artist undertaking research.
The Lattice Window
The cloisters at Lacock Abbey have been used recently in the Harry Potter movies. They featured in the "Chamber of Secrets" in the scene where Harry frees Dobby from servitude to Lucius Malfoy.
Where's Dobby?
One other thing I learned: Apart from being used to steady a camera when you don't want to use a tripod - monopoles also make handy walking sticks for 11 year old children who happen to have twisted their ankles! I didn't take a picture of that, Charlotte would never forgive me.