Shooting the eerie East

For issue seven of Ernest Journal, photographer Colin Nicholls accompanied editor Jo Tinsley on her journey along the East Anglian coast, exploring ghost towns, eroding sea cliffs and the abandoned laboratories and weapons testing facilities of Orford Ness. Colin tells us about his experience photographing these extraordinary locations

Sizewell Nuclear Power Station. All images by Colin Nicholls

Colin, what did you shoot with?

I took my Fuji XT2 and my 16mm, 23mm, and 56mm lenses. This is pretty much the standard kit for most of my work – the really small size of the camera, and the overall quality of the pictures all add up to a very nice working system. The XT2 is a mirrorless camera and much smaller and lighter than a standard DLSR setup. It's all weather sealed, which proved very useful while at Orford Ness.

How did you find shooting East Anglian landscapes, in comparison with other landscapes you've photographed? Were there any challenges?

The biggest challenge was shooting landscapes that were very minimal. Usually I look for a leading line or some way of composing the image to take the viewer's eye into it, but when there is very little you have to think a bit differently. As such, I embraced the minimal landscapes and shot in a way to show the viewer the sparse landscape in all its glory.

What surprised you most about the places you visited on your trip?

Pretty much everything we did was a massive surprise and really great fun. I’d never been to the east coast of England before, so it was nice to get the chance. I think the biggest surprise was seeing how the sea takes back the land so indiscriminately.

What was your favourite location and why?

Definitely Orford Ness. Getting to go inside the weapons testing facilities and see areas that few visitors get to see was incredible. I really enjoy those kind of raw concrete structures.

Anything you didn't enjoy quite so much?

Night walking. You just can’t see anything at all; you just follow the person in front of you. It was actually quite a fun experience, especially getting to see hundreds of glow worms, but the rain that accompanied us definitely was not. When I got back to my tent everything was wet, so I had to sleep in my car instead.

Where will you be going next with your camera?

I'm currently planning a two-week tour of Iceland, which will be my fourth trip to this wonderful place. This time it’s a solo journey and I’m hoping to get a lot done in the two weeks, particularly things that aren’t the standard tourist destinations. I’ll be documenting the whole thing so I’m hoping to put together a short film by the time I’m done.

What's on your bedside table?

Only a red anglepoise lamp, which my father bought when he was 21 and gave to me when I was a teenager. I like things quite minimal.

Colin is a photographer specialising in weddings and editorial work, with a passion for landscape and street photography. 

colinnichollsphotography.com

You can see more of Colin's images and read our guide to East Anglia in issue seven of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Making an Exhibition of Themselves

A stiletto umbrella for defensive purposes, a pen knife with 80 blades and an envelope folding machine – just three of the items unveiled at the Great Exhibition of 1851, the greatest show and tell session the world had ever seen...

Lewis Carroll said the Great Exhibition was “like a sort of fairyland”, while essayist Walter Bagehot wrote that it was “a great fair under a cucumber frame”. The Crystal Palace was built especially for the show – over 30 metres high and the size of 15 football pitches, with over 10 miles of aisles. 

The exhibition was the brainchild of Prince Albert and was opened by Queen Victoria on 1 May 1851. During the six months its doors were unlatched, visitors consumed 28,046 sausage rolls, 1,000 gallons of pickles and 37 tons of salt. Six million people paid entry to walk among its exhibits from all over the world, including a piano that could be played by four people at once, papier mâché furniture, and a dressing table that doubled as a fire escape. 

Visitor Mary Smith was recorded marvelling over an invention that may have inspired Wallace and Gromit: a bedstead fitted with an alarm that on the set hour would fold itself up, hurling the sleeper out of slumber. Another display was a glass case holding 200,000 live bees, which brings to mind Damien Hirst’s formaldehyde installations. But what other Great Exhibits left their mark? 

The Tempest Prognosticator
By Dr George Merryweather, museum curator
Whitby, England

This elaborate apparatus was developed by Dr George Merryweather after he observed that leeches became agitated when there was a storm approaching. To harness this phenomenon, Merryweather placed 12 glass bottles around the base of a circular stand, at the top of which was a bell surrounded by 12 hammers. He placed a leech in each bottle, and as the leeches became agitated by an approaching storm, they would crawl up the bottle, dislodging a piece of whalebone, which would make the bell ring. Merryweather explained the reason for the bottles’ positioning was so the leeches could see their fellow inmates and “not endure the affliction of solitary confinement”.

This invention may have had an unpredictable influence, not just on natural barometers that followed, but also on subsequent studies into human barometers that looked at how approaching weather formations affect mental health.

You can see a replica of the Tempest Prognosticator on display at Whitby Museum. 

The Yacht Piano
By William Jenkins, inventor and manufacturer
London, England

What does every gentleman’s yacht need but a piano? And with William Jenkins’ clever design displayed at the Great Exhibition, a collapsible keyboard meant the notoriously cumbersome instrument could, when folded, measure just 131⁄2 inches from front to back. Made from walnut – and carved and ornamented in the Elizabethan style – Jenkins exhibited it as an “Expanding and Collapsing Pianoforte for gentlemen’s yachts, the saloons of steam-vessels, ladies’ cabins, etc.”

Various companies went on to make yacht pianos, including Chappell & Co and Crammer & Co, as well as London department stores like John Barker and Whiteleys. Some models were elaborately decorated for the most wealthy yacht owners.

Jenkins’ Yacht Piano may even have influenced later designs. In 1866, Charles Hess filed a patent for a ‘convertible bedroom piano’, which, as well as being a fully functioning instrument, came complete with a hidden couch, a closet for bedclothes, a wash basin and a music stool containing a writing desk and looking glass. 

The Comical Creatures
By Hermann Ploucquet
Stuttgart, Germany

Besides the Koh-i-Noor diamond from India, one other exhibit that was said to really capture the attention of the crowds was that of taxidermist Hermann Ploucquet. Even Queen Victoria herself described Ploucquet’s display as “really marvellous”.

Ploucquet’s tableaux featured a large number of stuffed animals in human scenarios. Among the scenes were duelling dormice, ice-skating hedgehogs, a frog carrying an umbrella, and six kittens serenading a piglet underneath her window.

A reviewer from the Morning Chronicle wrote,“The animals borrow exaggerated expression without losing their brute looks and the rationale of the irresistible risibility which they excite is the wondrous union of brute face with human expression.”

Plouquet’s exhibit was so popular, his book The Comical Creatures of Wurtenburg was rushed out in the same year. His work is thought to have had a great deal of influence on subsequent artists, such as taxidermist Walter Potter, as well as on a fair few greetings cards since. 

Words: Lela Tredwell, Illustrations: Johnathan Montelongo
 

Read the full feature in issue 6 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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A glossary of seafaring terms

From "knucker" to "knockarse", historian Chris Hare is your guide to fisherman's words past and present

Illustration: Joe McLaren

bexhill bunny (noun)

A term used on-board instead of saying ‘rabbits’, which was considered unlucky. Prolonged periods of bad weather meant that fishermen were forced to stay on shore and hunt for rabbits. 

gipper (noun)

Slime that oozes out of newly caught fish. 

hoggie (noun)

A Sussex fishing boat, particularly associated with Brighton. 

knockarse (noun)

A boat with a flat stern, like a hoggie. 

knucker (noun)

A legendary dragon that lived in the spring-fed pools found on the coastal plain of Sussex, known as knucker holes. 

mace (noun)

A dialect word for credit, e.g. “How did you afford your new nets?”, “Oh, I bought them on the mace.” 

shay (noun)

A bright misty haze or halo seen at night, often associated with supernatural apparitions. 

shraves (noun)

The dips in the chalk cliffs as seen from the sea, the truncated valleys of the the South Downs, e.g.The Seven Sisters. 

silver darlings (noun)

Fishermen’s slang for herring. A good catch of herring was worth a great deal to fishermen, equal in value to nets of silver. 

whale (noun)

A name for a fisherman’s apron. 

Chris Hare's book The Secret Shore and CD South Coast Songs and Shanties is available to buy at secretshore.org.uk.

This glossary originally featured in issue six of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Shooting on a Leica IIIc

Dressed in woollen breeches and hobnailed boots, photographer Hanson Leatherby and writer Oliver Carter-Wakefield set out to climb Snowdon in the footsteps of mountaineer George Leigh Mallory, and to capture the expedition with the Kodak camera of the day – the Leica IIIc. We caught up with Hanson to find out more about this robust, yet elegant, piece of kit.

Images by Hanson Leatherby

For those unfamiliar with vintage cameras, what is a Leica?

The first 35mm film Leica prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, Wetzlar, in 1913. Intended as a compact camera for landscape photography, particularly during mountain hikes, the Leica was the first practical 35 mm camera that used standard cinema 35 mm film. Barnack conceived the Leica as a small camera that produced a small negative, with high quality lenses that could create well-defined negatives.

Tell us about the model you’re using – the IIIc.

My Leica IIIc was made in 1940. It's very small and portable with tiny interchangeable lenses that are really sharp and render beautifully with B&W film. They call it the 'Leica glow' with lenses from this era. The nature of shooting with a rangefinder urges you to frame in certain ways that give the image a particular style no other camera can give. This, as well as its portability, is why I chose it.

What should a user bear in mind when it comes to handling and operating this camera?

You have to cut the film leader to fit the film into the camera, which is a bit of a challenge. The shutter speed dial has to be operated after the film is wound on, not before.

How did you find using the Leica on the Mallory shoot in Snowdonia? Were there any surprises or challenges?

I have shot a lot with this camera so no surprises, really. As mentioned before, loading film is the main challenge as you have to cut the film leader to slide it into the body of the camera so that is doesn't foul the cloth shutter curtain. The curtain runs horizontally directly in front of the film plain, so when you slide film into the body of the camera it can hit the shutter curtain and cause damage or a jam.

Any other exciting shoots coming up?

The next shoot I have coming up is a Brassaï style nighttime street shoot in Paris, shot on film with models wearing 1930s clothing.

Hanson Leatherby is a Bebop fanatic, aesthete and an escapist. He is also a lover of cubism, sharp suits and industrial design. He shoots film on manual cameras to keep him sane.

hansonleatherby.com

You can read about Hanson and Oliver's experience walking in the footsteps of Mallory in issue 6 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

The history of the slipper

Fashion, customs, social science and industry – once you step inside the history of the slipper there’s much to sink into. But don’t get too comfortable, it’s not all about toasty toes 

What is a slipper? Until the late 19th century, the term could be used to describe any indoor shoe that slipped on to the foot, including ballroom slippers (think Cinderella’s glassy numbers), bathroom slippers, bedroom slippers and afternoon tea slippers. Nowadays, we use the word to mean footwear that is only to be worn in the home. Whatever the definition, its history is an absorbing proposition.

Slippers were worn in Chinese courts as early as 4700 BC. They would be made out of cotton or woven rush, had leather linings, and were adorned with symbols of power, such as dragons. Native American moccasins were also highly decorative. Hand painted to depict scenes from nature and embellished with beadwork and fringing, their soft sure-footedness made them suitable for indoors appropriation.

Inuit and Aleut people would make shoes from smoked hare hide to protect their feet against the frozen ground inside their homes. Conversely, the discerning Victorian gentleman was in need of a pair of ‘house shoes’ in order to keep the dust and gravel outside – much better than ruining his expensive rug and beautifully polished floor.

Embroidered slippers presented Victorian ladies (on both sides of the Atlantic) with an opportunity to show off their needlepoint skills. Magazines such as Godey’s Lady’s Book and Peterson’s Magazine contained patterns so that the latest fashions could be recreated in the home; a perfect gift for a loved one, and an ideal way to entice a man with an eye for embroidery.

The emergence of a slipper industry grew from the warehouse floor of the felt industry in northeast England. Workers would make themselves footwear from the scraps that were left over, and from this seed grew the businesses of John William Rothwell, Samuel McLerie and other commercial retailers in the late 1800s. Though the advent of heating and descent into everyday casualness may have led slipper sales to decline since the 1950s it doesn’t make them any less interesting, or snug! Read on for tales of notable styles, from those worn by Kanye West to the Pope. 

The Prince Albert slipper

The discerning gentleman’s house shoe, which gained popularity in the 1840s, is said to have been designed by Prince Albert himself. The Albert slipper has an extended vamp (the upper part), quilted lining and leather sole. Initially designed for Victorian men hosting dinner parties, and to be teamed with a matching smoking jacket, this design staple was later synonymous with Hollywood greats, such as Clarke Gable. From Robert Kennedy to the purveyor of questionable style Kanye West, it has continued to be a signature of the debonair.

To liberate or repress

Slippers have been used as both a symbol of freedom and oppression. For Rita de Acosta Lydig, receiver of one of the largest divorce settlements of her day in 1900, her Pietro Yanturni slippers, made of gold brocade and silver silk tissue (stored on shoe trees made from antique violins), were a sign of opulence. Slippers worn by members of a sultan’s harem represented something entirely different. Their frail nature made it impossible to escape over any rough terrain, but made them ideal footwear for the luxurious carpets of their masters.

Papal submission

The slippers historically worn by the Pope were an elaborate affair. Bright red, to represent the blood of martyrs and Christ’s own bloodied feet in his final moments, they were handmade from silk or satin and decorated with gold thread. A gold cross garnished with rubies completed the ornate spectacle. The Pope wore these slippers inside his residences, rather than the red leather shoes he would wear outside, and it was custom that any pilgrim having an audience with the Pope had to kneel and kiss one of his slippers. 

Words: Duncan Haskell, Illustrations: Jade They

This originally featured in issue six of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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