Potteries Museum & Art Gallery
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388)
Stoke September 2012
The Potteries Museum & Art Gallery is housed in modern building the museum is dedicated to displaying exhibits from the Potteries region around Stoke-on-Trent in the Midlands. To honour its local aircraft designer R.J. Mitchell a Spitfire Mk.16 with clipped wings has been on display in Stoke since was donated to the museum in 1972 by the RAF. It was built in the Midlands in 1945 at Castle Bromwich in Birmingham.

 I had an hour to spare when in the area so with tripod in hand I set course on the sat-nav for Bethesda Street, Stoke, as the doors opened at 10:00 I was walking up their path. Reporting to the front desk I was immediately welcomed and escorted to the small room where the Spitfire is on show. Some steps up to a balcony were roped off but a message board suggested that photographers could take advantage of the elevated position once they signed a form to say that their images were for not for commercial use. Another guide offered to put on the room's main lights, this I asked to be done after I had taken all the images I needed under the smaller and more moody spot lights. I did not use flash preferring to make use of the different lighting available. In the restricted area and using a 20mm lens it was difficult to shoot the whole of the aircraft so I decided to take some 'panoramic' images and stitch them together in post processing. Whilst it was challenging in using the complex Hugin - Panorame Sticher software the final results were two or three perfectly joined together images. Other images were taken using a wider 15mm lens.

The Spitfire is under restoration by Supermarine Aero Ltd at the time of my visit some parts of the aircraft were missing others were unpainted. More information on the restoration and the aircraft's history can be found on various websites, click the links at the top of this page to find out more about the World War Two fighter.
Potteries Museum
Supermarine Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M)

Potteries Museum
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M) under the spotlights only
Potteries Museum Potteries Museum Potteries Museum
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M) under the spotlights.
Potteries Museum
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M) under the spotlights.
Potteries Museum Potteries Museum Potteries Museum
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M) under the main lights.
Potteries Museum
Spitfire LF.XVIe (RW388, 6947M) under the main lights.