Photography for Historic Buildings and Restoration Projects

I provide a bespoke photography service for Historic buildings and houses, museums and heritage organisations, including a specialist photography service for renovations and funded restoration projects. Scroll down to find out how my photography service can help your historic building or restoration.

Photography for Historic Buildings

Document your heritage building or site through dynamic and exacting photography. No matter if its for your social media, your web presence or for your archive, every museum, historic building or site of special interest deserves to be documented through high quality photography. I specialise in providing a one-stop service - receive high quality documentation imagery, as well as photographs you can use across all of your media platforms and archival uses - don’t pay for different images for social media and your archive!

Whether you are reopening after a long closure, opening a new gallery or exhibition or just want to have a selection of great images of your museum or building for your records or to use online; I can provide a service dedicated to providing you with the highest possible image quality whatever your needs.

Many of my clients have found having a selection of images showing your building or museum off to its best can be extremely beneficial for your marketing, brochures and fliers, education services, or just for the archive for years to come. Up to date photographs present you as a modern and forward moving organisation and having a supply on-hand for any occasion saves you time and money.

My services include a full interior and exterior documentation photography service, providing high quality photographs of your historic building. I aim to guarantee my imagery and through careful research and discussion my goal is to provide you with images you can use and keep forever. However, I aim to provide a bespoke service and will tailor my images to your needs. And remember you pay only for the time it takes me to make them - no copyright payments or licenses to renew, just a one off payment and you are free to use the photographs as you wish (although I always appreciate a photo credit in any published material).

Specialist Photography for Restoration of Historic Buildings

Imagine not having a comprehensive and exhaustive archive about the history of your building, museum or site?!   Imagine if a major change in your buildings historic fabric was missing from your archive?! Now imagine future generations of curators and caretakers of your museum or building wondering about what happened during your restoration project or your redevelopment phase. What did it look like before? What changes were made?

Project and redevelopment documentation is absolutely vital to preserving the historical context and history of your building or place. Without comprehensive documentary photography, your building loses an important data set of its history therefore any changes, no matter how minor, should be photographed and archived.   Also, by photographing your development work you are able to engage people with your transformation - via social media or your website; comprehensive redevelopment photography can enthuse your visitors about exciting new projects.

Below is an example of a large scale multi-million pound restoration project which I photographed over the course of nearly 2 years. The results were spectacular. And thanks to my photography, they were able to share the changes across media, inform funding bodies of progress and have a documented catalogue of the process as well as images they can use across their marketing and commercial interests. This form of project isn’t as expensive as you would imagine, and is often a requirement of funding applications - so get in touch and find out how your restoration could benefit from high quality photography and save you money!

Historic Building Restoration - A Case study

I have recently completed an extensive 18 month+ project documenting an HLF funded restoration. This involved a comprehensive monthly photographic documentation process, tracking the renovation of every room and major feature of a 14th Century manor house during a two year restoration project. The goal was to develop an in depth portfolio documenting not only the before and after, but also to capture the restoration process itself.

Before and After images are only the beginning of the comprehensive story a detailed photographic project can achieve.  Below are some more images of this important redevelopment project documenting the works involved and some of the discoveries made, which without photographic documentation would have remained unknown to future generations.  Thanks to the photographic archive I created, Headstone Manor now has a comprehensive collection of images detailing every aspect of their renovation, that now sit alongside the  images of the manor they already had - creating a seamless archive stretching back hundreds of years.  They were also able to inform National Lottery Heritage Fund of progress on site (to NLHF standards for photography) and to enthuse and engage potential visitors using social media with beautiful images that hint at the excitement to come.

Continue scrolling down to find out how National Lottery Heritage Fund requirements for photography may effect your project.

Heritage Lottery and other funding requirements

Many funding bodies, National Lottery Heritage Fund included, have detailed specifications for photographic documentation. Photography of your funded project is usually a requirement and is governed by rules about what, and how, images should be prepared. NLHF for example require funded projects to document their progress in periodic progress reports and are advised to maintain a detailed photographic record of the project, whether that project is a site wide renovation or a single workshop.  All my documentation imagery conforms to these standards as well as being able to be used in the wider world... meaning you don't have to pay for 2 sets of images, one for your funding body and one for marketing or archival use.  My images are also supplied license free, meaning you have the copyright and license permissions to do with the images what you wish. You can spread the photographs on social media or use in commercial marketing materials at no extra hidden cost - you just pay for my time making the images and will never get any hidden fees later... the photographs are yours (although a photo credit is always appreciated)!

Smaller Documentation projects

Its not just major renovation works that require photography. Single events, education workshops or opening of new galleries also need well thought out photographic treatment. Again this may be a requirement of funding or just an opportunity to show your visitors exciting new projects you are undertaking. Either way I can cover all forms of renovation work - from new gallery or exhibition space advertising to education and interpretation panels or workshops. Below is a short slideshow of some of the work I have done. Please get in touch no matter how small or large your project is.