Category Archives: Exhibition

The Last Stand

Posted on by

We spoke to photographer and Terry O’Neill award winner Marc Wilson, to find out more about The Last Stand exhibition, which opens at the Royal Armouries at Fort Nelson on Friday, 3 May.

What was your Inspiration for the work?
Initially the project came out of a small body of work called Abandoned that I created in 2003. This project included some military locations – from these I realised the importance of the subject matter and I felt I needed to produce a piece of work about it. Many locations have been documented before in some form or another but I wanted to approach it in my own way, and in doing so not only look at the objects themselves, but their place in the shifting landscape over time. Most importantly of all, I wanted to set up a dialogue and hopefully prompt the viewer to reflect on the histories and memories associated with these places.

Like many people today, I have some connection to the two world wars. My grandfather had been in the Navy in the First World War and whilst I did have a relative flying with the RAF during WW2, the main connection was with one side of my family being caught up in the horrors unfolding in Europe. Perhaps, in some ways, this project is my response to that.

© Marc Wilson

© Marc Wilson

What has been your favourite location to capture?
I’ve been asked that a few times and it’s so hard to answer. I love the process of photography and I have enjoyed the experience of the journeys and taking pictures at these locations where the landscapes are quite breathtaking. But then at the same time, whilst I strive to produce visually beautiful images, the subject matter at these locations is so dark that the ‘enjoyable’ elements pale away. An odd feeling really.

As for a ‘favourite’ to photograph, the dunes at Newburgh, north of Aberdeen, come to mind. I was 600 miles away from home, up at 4am, and I had to climb out of the hotel bar window as the front door was locked. It was a wonderful hour’s walk through the dunes in the rising light and sea mist before I was greeted with the scene you see in the images in the exhibition. It was then a slow walk back along the beach as the sea mist slowly melted away, back to the hotel for breakfast and an explanation for the open bar window!

© Marc Wilson

© Marc Wilson

What was the hardest image to capture?
The hardest, physically, was probably the image at the Dengie peninsula in Essex. It was another 4am start, followed by a one-hour cycle to the location, over a muddy grass levee in the rain, with my large format camera, tripod and umbrella on my back. I then stood in the rain for an hour waiting for it to stop, which it did eventually. I set up, shot the image and then cycled back with heavier legs and over muddier grass. The trip to Northern France and Belgium was also hard with 10 days of ferry journeys, late afternoon recces, 4am starts and daytime driving to the next location, with evenings of unloading and loading darkslides in neon motels, and four trips up and down the northern coast chasing the light.

© Marc Wilson

© Marc Wilson

What has it been like to photograph such poignant locations?
I photographed in the South West of England – this location had been recced on a previous visit and so I knew the time of day, direction, amount of sun and height of the tides I needed for the shot.

Yet still this image required over 280 miles and five hours of driving, followed by three hours in place, with the camera set up, waiting for the perfect combination of light and tides.

The image you will see in the exhibition was made at Torcross, nearby Slapton Sands. Some of you may be familiar with the military history of this location but for those that are not, it was used as a training ground for the D-Day landings due to its similarity to the coastline and conditions in Normandy, France. The local villages had all been emptied of the residents and the troops had moved in.

In April 1944, during Exercise Tiger, the three-mile-long convoy of vessels on their way to the exercises was attacked by nine German torpedo boats.  Two tank-landing ships were sunk, with the loss of 749 American servicemen. Over 1,000 lives were lost during the exercise.

It is a beautiful and peaceful place, and as I now stand in these locations, I am so engrossed in the photographic process that I can at times forget these histories. As soon as I stop though, and begin to pack away the camera, they all flood in, these mass casualties of war, associated with the histories and memories of these sites I am photographing. My imagination though can only scratch at the surface of the reality of these events.

For more information about The Last Stand, visit our website.

Do you have a place, which holds memories that has now been abandoned or destroyed? Are you a serving soldier that has left behind a base you called home whilst serving abroad? Did you document these places at the time or now they are gone? If so, we would love you to share them with us online. Tweet us at @Royal_Armouries using #LostLocations or post on our facebook page.

Swords of the Middle Earth…

Posted on by

To celebrate the premiere of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey, four heroic swords based on weapons used in the epic The Lord of the Rings film trilogy will go on display at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds on Thursday (December 13). Royal Armouries’ curator of European Edged Weapons, Bob Woosnam-Savage, reveals all about the magical swords.

After our highly successful The Wonderful World of Weta: Arms and Armour from the Movies exhibition in 2008, I have kept in close contact with one of the workshop’s directors, Sir Richard Taylor, in New Zealand. So when these swords were suggested as a collection of ‘high-end’ collectibles of museum quality I knew we had to have them.

Although the swords in this collection are not movie props, they have been made at the multi-Academy Award winning Weta Workshop by the movie’s very own swordsmith, Peter Lyon, using the same designs, methods, materials and tools that were used to create the original hero weapons for The Lord of the Rings motion picture trilogy. The pieces encompass a multitude of sword making, metal crafting and wood-working techniques and are examples of present day, world-class sword-making skills. In fact it could be said that they are even better than the original movie props as Peter Lyon now has 10 years more experience in sword making!

The swords – Andúril, Strider’s Sword, Glamdring, and Sting – are all artists’ proof copies of the long since, sold-out limited editions, ranging from only 10 to 25 in number, and have been made over the past two years.

The design of some of the swords is based on real medieval and Renaissance designs, similar to those held by the museum.  Andúril, the sword of Aragorn, was based upon a large ‘cruciform’ European sword. The hand-and-a-half sword of the ranger ‘Strider’ was based closely on the proportions of a late 15th century European (bastard or hand-and-half) sword, but with non-historical design features. The result is a functional and elegant synthesis of history and fantasy. Even ‘Sting’ was originally going to be based upon a Holbein-type dagger of the 16th century, but after much rethinking ended up as it is seen. John Howe, one of the concept artists of The Hobbit also, designed the sword Andúril for The Lord of the Rings as well as co-designing Strider’s sword.

To run alongside the installation, our visitor experience team has written a demonstration entitled ‘From Battle Scene to Silver Screen’. The talk will give a fascinating look into how arms and armour are used for film and television. There will be a chance to learn about what materials are used, how they are made and the difference between props and reality. The talk is suitable for all ages, particularly The Lord of the Rings or Star Wars’ fans! At the end of the 10-minute talk, visitors will have a chance to hold the props used in the talk and feel like movie stars themselves.

The Swords of Middle Earth exhibition goes on display at Royal Armouries Museum, Leeds, on December 13 and runs until February 2013.

Editing, a labour of love…

Posted on by

Sound Artist Amie Slavin talks about the trials and tribulations of editing Other Ranks and how every stutter, mumble and pause must be considered.

At the end of the process of collecting sounds, I gathered them all up and began the massive labour of love, which is the editing process. I had to listen to every moment of every recording, snipping and making tidy cuts of usable sounds and filing them for inclusion in the piece.  I had to spot what’s especially good and excise anything off-topic, contaminated or unusable for any other reason.

At this point I had a big pile of files, each still quite lengthy, containing the best of each location and/or voice.  This is where it gets tricky…

The toughest part of editing for a project like this one is that you end up with more material than you have space.  You are, if you are me, now in love with every sound, every voice, and getting really scratchy about losing anything anyone has said.  Tough!  Man-up, whining arty-person!

From here on, each sound file has to stand up and justify its inclusion in the piece.  Every voice gets edited further as each one is snipped and placed, with extreme delicacy and care, into position within the mix.  Each must overlap its surrounding sounds correctly. A fraction of a second alters where the listener’s attention is – and this has a very real impact on which parts of which voices actually get heard.  I like to have voices criss-crossing each other, like old chaps in a pub, each philosophising into his pint, they chime, coalesce and weave gently around each other.  They also cut across each other, sometimes agreeing and sometimes not.  They reinforce and contradict each other.  One voice adds to another from a very different experience or perspective.

Throughout the process, my preference is to preserve the participant’s own speech rhythms and style of articulation.  I don’t like to begin by cutting out their stumbles and stutters.  I like the emotional elaboration we get from the way someone speaks, as well as the words they say.

At every point the priority is to pay central attention to what each person was trying to say.  I warned participants that their voices would be edited.  I also promised to represent them fairly.  This was a most serious and sincere pledge and, at the end of the production process I am equally concerned with how each participant will feel about his treatment within the edits and the piece, as well as the effectiveness of the whole mix.  This creates an additional complexity which has served to keep me awake and pacing the floor through many nights in the past four years.

The end product contains literally hundreds of sounds and dozens of voices, as well as several hundred participants who contributed their marching feet and PT exertions.  In many places the voices are edited into fluency.  Many, are of course, fluent to begin with.  Where necessary, I have removed stumbles and mumbles, which make a particular piece of speech too long for the gap it’s heading for.  Did it work?  Well that’s your call, isn’t it?

Blogger: Amie Slavin

Other Ranks is now open in the War Gallery at Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds until March 2013. For more information, visit our website.

Creating Other Ranks…

Posted on by

Sound Artist Amie Slavin has been creating the installation, Other Ranks, for the past four years. She tells us about her journey; travelling to Army camps to record soldiers’ stories, witnessing a mocked-up Afghan war zone and trying to instigate a good old dressing-down.

Artist, Amie Slavin

Other Ranks owes its existence to many contributors and friends. A project of this scale and scope requires a lot of research and preparation. The bulk of the work, in terms of the time it has taken, has been spent in pursuing every sound, every voice, every piece of proffered advice or wisdom and seizing ruthlessly on anyone not quick enough to stay out of reach!

I’ve been on three different Army camps and visited a TA veterans’ group.  I’ve recorded in the street, in fields, backrooms and a mocked-up Afghan Forward Operating Base.

At the beginning, notwithstanding meticulous and painstaking planning, there’s little predicting the sounds that’ll make it into the studio.  I roughed out lists of questions for interviewees and plans for sounds.  In the event, though, people say what they want to say and the best conversations are those where I’ve facilitated the participant to lead me in his chosen direction.  Some guys will talk about almost anything and are eager to do so.  Others are wary of speaking out of turn or of causing me distress with what they say.  For example, I spent some considerable time and effort attempting to find and persuade someone to give me a good old-fashioned Army dressing-down.  I wanted to show how the rigorous standards of behaviour and training are applied to the soldier on the ground. Two chaps very kindly had a crack at it for me but one eventually admitted it was just impossibly difficult to stand in front of a female civilian (my gender was more inhibiting than my disability they told me, to my delight) and deliver a proper telling-off.  Both spoke to me in gently firm and moderate language about my slipshod turnout on parade or my drunken behaviour off camp (how did they know?)

Upshot was I had to rethink the inclusion of a dressing-down, whereas a thoroughly slick and fluent explanation of the history of the Drill Parade flowed onto tape without hesitation or preparation.  I couldn’t have guessed that this would be the case.  Planning a production of this nature is a deeply imprecise science.  This is, of course, one of the greatest joys of it.

Other Ranks, opens in the War Gallery at Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds today (1 November) and runs until March 31, 2013.

Blogger: Amie Slavin