Photographing the stones

Stonehenge 180

Image by The Eternal

scubi63 Nov 24, 2008 23:52:49

I have arranges an 'out of hours' visit to Stonehenge in the near future.

As normal, my plan of attack was to take as many photos as is humanly possible in the short time I am there.
However, I now realise my knowledge of this place is pretty limited and I would like to be much better preparred on this occassion.
Therefore I would very much appreciate any advice on anything specific worth trying to get a photo of?

My visit is in the morning and I will have the use of a remote flash to try to bring out any interesting markings or textures.

Also is there a good plan drawing of the circle that I can download and use to reference the photos I take?

Thanks in advance

:o)

Scubes

CianMcLiam Nov 25, 2008 10:45:59

Replying to scubi63

I'm far from an expert on Stonehenge but I can say that the time I visited it was very frustrating trying to get a good classic shot of Stonehenge because there's all your fellow visitors there wandering around too (in June the allocated spaces were full), cermemonies going on and security in luminous jackets. I definitely found that the time was much too short for exploring and getting good photos, plus the sunset was pretty dull with no clouds except right on the horizon where I didn't want them!

In the end I tried a handful of setups and then just wandered around.

Morning might be better, I was scrambling to catch the last light and most of the shots were dissapointing. If I were to go again I'd do an early weekday morning in winter and hope that there's only a few fellow tourists.

Others would give you better ideas for details to look for but I think it would pay to be well prepared, I definitely wasn't and ended up getting frustrated.

Steve Gray Nov 25, 2008 14:21:42

Replying to scubi63

scubi63 wrote:

Also is there a good plan drawing of the circle that I can download and use to reference the photos I take?

Will these do?

http://www.swifttools5.demon.co.uk/P233.tif
http://www.swifttools5.demon.co.uk/P234.tif

Psychostevouk Nov 26, 2008 10:26:10

Replying to scubi63

Hello there,

I spend so long on this site I thought it was about time I registered, and this post seems as good a reason as any!
I work for the National Trust at Stonehenge Landscape, so I've managed to do a few special access tours. The one shot I've always found my best was perching the camera on the fallen stone 55 and facing towards the north east. This gets a nice view of stone 55 at the bottom of the pic, and the remaining 3 arches of the outer sarsen circle in the background. It was a cold grey day when I took it, but it still looked good.
The inner side of the trilithon stones 53 and 54 have the carvings of the Mycenaean dagger and axe head on them (can't remember which of the two stones it is now), as well as some more recent antiquarian era tagging. Opposite them, but on the outer side of stones 57 and 58 you can see small plugs concealing bolts used to repair the standing stones. Not very photogenic though! Stone 16, part of the outer circle, has some of the best dressing work on it, especially viewed from the SE side (I think).

You can get a fairly good plan halfway down the Wikipedia page for Stonehenge.

Regards,
Steve

Vicster Dec 6, 2008 13:53:55

Replying to scubi63

Have you been yet? Interested to know what you made of it.

I really enjoyed our trip, we went in the evening at the begining of April this year, bloody freezing and we had sleet, rain and sunshine, which made for interesting light when taking pictures and also produced a rainbow for us. Lovely. We left when someone started playing a didgeridoo though!!

grufty jim Dec 7, 2008 12:43:05

Replying to scubi63

I suspect this has appeared here before. Apologies if it has as I'm not a regular on this part of the site. But one of the demo's of the Microsoft PhotoSynth Application is a Stonehenge synth.

Check it out here.