National Motorcycle Museum
National Motorcycle Museum
It’s raining it’s pouring the old man is snoring, well I was until the alarm went off at early o’clock. Most Saturdays I’m up before dawn breaks to go and shoot a motorsports event.
But in the winter months I would rather stay in bed as racing of any sort is thin on the ground and the weather is generally not ideal, what with the weak low sun and the high levels of precipitation, taking quality photography is challenging to say the least.
And boy was it not ideal on the Saturday we chose to go out and about with our camera gear. It was raining so hard an eel, yes the fishy snake looking critter that cockneys love to eat with jelly, was spotted swimming up Lincoln High street.
It was the same over most of the country but that didn’t stop the PistonClick team heading out. Brian was at a soggy Croft Circuit capturing the British Rally X Championships, David was at Silverstone and we went to the National Motorcycle Museum.
So at first glance, picking the warmth of the National Motorcycle Museum it looks like we had bottled going out in the inclement weather preferring to stay undercover.
You are sort of right but the trip to Birmingham had been planned well in advance as the National Motorcycle Museum (NMM) was holding its 6th annual open day and it was free to get in.
When I say free, there was a £10 parking fee and as the normal entry fee is just under a tenner, in my head with two of us in a car that’s half price to get in. If you were brave enough to travel there on a motorcycle, and a few did, it was free to park.
Watching the hardy few on two wheels wringing the cold autumn water out of their gloves I was happy to have arrived in a car.
So as a photographer, or motorcycle enthusiast, what can you expect to experience during your visit to the NMM? Located at junction 6 on the M42 the surprisingly large building houses over a 1000 British Motorcycles with 850 displayed in five halls.
A museum shop, restaurant and numerous conference halls form up round a central grassed area.
The conference halls and smaller suites were used for trade and extra display areas on our visit, with retailers selling everything from leather flying helmets to the latest state of the art digital motorcycle dash displays.
The main hall, the Britannia Suite, was being used to show the England World Cup Rugby game when we arrived, and later TV presenter Henry Cole was presenting his Shed and Buried Live show.
The court yard was hosting the Live Fire up area. Race bikes were started up for the enthusiasts to listen to and the owners were interviewed. The miserable weather kept most of the crowd looking on from inside the display halls.
There wasn’t much room under the gazebos housing the bikes that were attempting to hold back the worst of the weather.
With over 20 bikes to fire up there were two sessions planned for the day. There was a good selection of bikes from original racing MV Agusta to Yamaha YZR 500 Team Roberts Lucky Strike replicas.
Trying to get a shot of the bikes running wasn’t going to happen what with the crowds, but by deferring it half an hour after the event, the crowds had gone back inside leaving me alone with the bikes.
There were a lot of visitors for the open day. The museum attracts a quarter of a million visitors annually and is the largest motorcycle museum in the world, so you should find something to interest you if it's your first visit.
I wanted to hunt down my first road legal motorcycle which was a BSA C15. As you would expect they have a pristine example on show.
I was surprised how small it was but then again so was I back in the day. What was more surprising was the 900cc Triumph Daytona in yellow; I also owned one of these. I suppose it’s a modern classic now and deserves its place in the museum.
So as you can see from the photos, the huge number of bikes are packed into the halls grouped together by marque. This is good for the motorcycle enthusiast as there are a lot of British motorcycles to see.
It's not so good for the photographer who wants a clear shot of the machines. It's difficult to isolate individual bikes and that's why I went for the detailed arty shots. There are no restrictions on photography in the halls and the NMM are happy for you to take video and photographs during your visit.
Due to the crowds and the packed in displays I had decided to take a wide angle zoom lens, the Nikon 17 - 55mm f2.8 matched to a D7200.
Not an ideal setup, but as I didn’t want to use flash and I needed a camera that would be able to handle high ISO, the D7200 does that. The single digit Nikons I have are somewhat old and don’t handle the dark too well.
I concentrated on getting arty pictures for the most part, keeping the aperture as wide open as possible to get that nice blurred background. White balance was set to auto as was the ISO, which let me play with the aperture settings allowing me to adjust the depth of focus without under or over exposing the image.
There were quite a few other side-shows going on during our visit. A few book signings were held, with John McGuiness being spotted flogging his excellent book and T-shirts while having a laugh with the fans.
The oddest display of the day was by Prudence Staite who was building a motorcycle out of chocolate. She was being interviewed by a film crew so I didn’t get a chance to ask her about her creation, or get a free sample, not that I think her art is for eating.
All in all it was a good day out at the 6th annual National Motorcycle Museum Live event, so if you are at a loose end check it out in 2020. It’s a good location to get some automotive pictures in a pleasant environment.
I got some nice shots that will keep me occupied over the winter. I will revisit the pictures when there is less going on during the winter weekends, which will be a great opportunity for me to practice my photo editing skills.
So watch out for them on the PistonClick Instagram feed.
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