Lacock Abbey, where Henry Fox Talbot invented photography, is surrounded by its beautiful grounds – a very English park with orchard and greenhouse, winding paths and grazing sheep. If you’re lucky you can eat apples from his apple trees as I did.
Talbot made outdoor exposures with his new invention – what we call analogue photography – in the 1840s in this very place. It hasn’t changed much in the intervening years and he would have seen more or less what you see here. The photographs were taken on a cool autumn day with the trees in full colour.
Ah, memories! See if you can track down Larry Scharf while you’re there. He may be hiding out upstairs. http://foxtalbot.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/
He is the world expert on Talbot matters, isn’t he? I am just re-reading after 33 years (Jesus I’m old!) the biography of Talbot by HJP Arnold from 1978. It follows the great man in detail and explains him very well.