The completely revamped Museum of Lancashire opened its doors to the public again towards the end of last year and the good news is, it is completely free to visit for the first 12 months.

The museum is much bigger than it looks from the outside. In fact it manages to house a fascinating range of exhibits and even finds room for a cafe and the obligatory shop. It’s the items on show that really catch the eye though, they have been well set out and many displays are interactive and bang up to date. Not surprising when you consider the museum has undergone a transformation costing around £1.7m, partly funded by the Council and the Lottery fund.

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One interesting display for me was the display of Caribbean Carnival costumes. I undertook a photographic project to document the Carnival for the event organisers a couple of years back and I remembered photographing some of the costumes being made at the Carnival workshops down at Oyston Mill. If you haven’t visited the Museum of Lancashire yet, I would certainly recommend it. It’s a great way to spend a couple of hours. The Museum is on Stanley Street in Preston.

This week’s photograph shows some of the interior exhibition panels that document the history of Lancashire. The light levels in this part of the building are quite low so to capture this picture I had to adjust the ISO setting of the camera to ISO1600 and also had to use a fairly slow shutter speed combined with a Nikon VR lens. This type of lens enables you to shoot hand-held at much slower speeds than normal.

Camera details: Nikon D700 16-35mm f4VR lens, ISO1600 f5.6 1/15sec

Image by Paul Melling