Military Re-Enactment Photography

Garry Neesam
Mar 30
2 min read

I’ve been interested in military history for over 60 years and photography for around 57 years, so naturally the two have combined. I can well remember cycling from Welwyn Garden to Shuttleworth as a teenager to see airshows, spending weekends in a tent in the Cotswolds for the RIAT at RAF Fairford and the amazing Festivals of History with English Heritage. Apart from the specific History events, you can often find re-enactors at airshows like Duxford and Shuttleworth with the opportunity to shoot them with their aircraft.

My particular interest at the moment is taking portrait shots of the re-enactors. This usually involves actually speaking to the participants and getting them to pose for me. I find them fascinating; they are usually experts on their period of history, they know their genre inside and out whether that be from Roman tactics and armour to how to strip a sub machine gun, they can wax lyrical, often for far longer than you have time to get round all the different groups.

History events usually take place in the summer and the popular ones can be rammed with thousands of visitors. Although I have a particular interest in WWII, I enjoy the multiple period events where you can find displays from the Vikings right up to Desert Storm and everything in between.

Many events will have displays of battle re-enactments or military drill. I tend to avoid photographing them unless I can get a viewpoint with absolutely no spectators. This can be difficult in an arena with crowds on all four sides. Nothing destroys the effect of a charging knight on horseback than having a family eating ice creams in the background. I favour going round the individual groups’ displays and speaking to the individuals.

The sun can be your enemy; I hate taking shots of people with harsh shadow so I will often ask the re-enactor to move into an area of shade be that inside their tent or vehicle or take them away from their display into the shade of some nearby trees. They are usually very happy to accommodate photographers’ requests, especially if you show an interest in what they are doing.

Now that English Heritage no longer do their Festival of History events, the best I’ve found is the Military Odyssey at the Kent Showground, a three-day event with hundreds of re-enactors representing two thousand years of history. I spent one day there last year and only got half way round. English heritage do have re-enactments at various castles and houses, for instance St George’s day at Wrest Park and jousting at various castles throughout the summer.