Anne Hathaway’s Cottage is the famous 14th Century farmhouse that belonged to the wife of William Shakespeare. It’s situated in Shottery, one mile from Stratford-Upon-Avon, and is something of an icon of quintessential medieval England.
I was commissioned to shoot the 360 interactive panorama by Visit Britain, in association with Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust. They wanted me to capture the feel and atmosphere of a timber framed cottage, that would once have been quite common in this part of England.
The interior was actually quite dark as the latticed windows didn’t seem to let in much light. With such heavy woodwork too, The Parlour has a particularly rustic charm and simple, farmhouse atmosphere. This sort of low level lighting is a real problem with automated 360 cameras, as their small image sensors cannot record the low light levels without adding digital signal noise. This breaks up the image and reduces detail and resolution. However, this isn’t a problem for the fully manual DSLR techniques that i use, as sensors are far better, more sesnitive and more expensive, so they can handle the ambient lighting much better.
I chose the retain the dark atmosphere in The Parlour, as this was how the room felt. It would have been easy to have given the image a longer exposure, but since the shadows play such an important role, that would have taken away the mood. The sound recording of old Grandfather clock, as he ticked and tocked as time passed by, also added to the overall experience.
To read a more comprehensive case study of Visit Britain’s “Britain Is Great“campaign, please click the link.
