Museum peace

Sean Batten uses his wide-angle lens to capture the quiet but striking interiors of London’s museums and galleries

I’m a software developer by day, but a keen amateur photographer when time allows. I live near London and love to photograph all aspects of London life, from its architecture to its people.

I’d been looking for a project that I could work on over time and would give a view of London that you don’t see very often. I decided to settle on photographing London museums. Londoners are lucky in that almost all museums and galleries are free these days, plus there’s a huge number of them. Also, most have a liberal approach to photography; you’re allowed to shoot in them as long as you’re not using a flash and it’s not a paid exhibition.

Something to consider if you’re shooting in these spaces is that space is often quite tight, so a wide-angle lens is a big help; I typically use my Nikon 1424mm as it does a great job of getting everything in. Lighting can also be an issue, so you’ll want to increase the ISO and open up the aperture. The 1424mm opens up to f/2.8, and I leave it on this setting whenever I’m shooting interiors.

Great at the Tate

One of my favourite museums to photograph is the Tate; both the Tate Modern and Tate Britain. Time To Go [2] shows one of the most iconic areas of Tate Britain, the Manton stairwell. I wanted to try something different with this shot,