Great North Festival at Beamish...

Great North Festival at Beamish…

The Museum took part in a wider Festival of the North East this weekend, contributing numerous activities as well as a mini steam gala.  The photos below show some of what was happening, including an airing for No.18 (Lewin) – this has now had the bureaucratic matter associated with it sorted out and the cold exam of the boiler was successfully carried out last week.  We can now proceed to a steam test and certification of the loco and testing of it in earnest – a long time in coming!

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Below: Andy Martin uses a wet plate photographic process to capture various transport scenes around the Colliery, in glorious sunshine.  For the result of this exposure, scroll down to the black & white section later in this post…P1000423 P1000428 P1000440 P1000444 P1000447 P1000449

Here are the results of Andy Martin’s experimentation with ‘tin type’ photography.  A number of the views above were set up for him to apply wet plate principles (a mid 1800s technique) whereby a piece of aluminium is coated in chemicals and immediately placed into the camera and an exposure made.  The plate is then rushed to a makeshift darkroom and is processed, resulting in a small plate with an image captured on its surface.  Andy might be pursuaded to write more on the subject at some point, but meanwhile here are the fruits of his labours – noting that the images are reversed… These are therefore the real thing, with no digital interference whatsoever.

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