Over the last few months here at Document Scotland we have been pretty busy, however, we always make time to see new work. Here we take a look at some of the work by graduates from Edinburgh Napier University 2014 which was on show earlier this year in their degree show and also at Free […]
We interviewed Marc Wilson and featured his impressive project ‘The Last Stand‘ on the Document Scotland site a while ago. His project beautifully documents some of the physical remnants of the Second World War on the coastlines of the British Isles and northern Europe. When we first spoke to Marc, he had already travelled to […]
Three cheers for the Commonwealth Games. The metal stick aka “the Queen’s Baton” which she kindly loaned-out for a series of global jogs has traversed the old pink section of the global atlas and has now entered Glaswegian orbit after a dash across Scotia’s hills, glens and shopping centres. I remember the 1974 Games in […]
Luke Brown sent us this series of images ‘Time And Tide Wait For No Man’, a look at the outdoor swimming pool areas of the Edwardian and Victorian eras. It isn’t a subject matter we’d seen covered before, and knowing nothing of Scottish outdoor pools we find it of interest and Luke has graciously shared […]
It was with pleasure that I followed a link on Twitter today, that great oracle, and found out news that a book of Scottish photography is about to be reprinted. Always joyous news here in Document Scotland. The book in question is Stone Built by Gunnie Moberg, so with kind permission of the Gunnie Moberg […]
If not the quite centre of the universe, Stirling felt like the place to be in Scotland this weekend. On Friday evening, Pipefest kicked three days of festivities, with around 1600 pipers and other musicians from around the world marching from the castle through the city’s streets. The following day, Bannockburn Live competed for attention […]
“Andrew Cawley sent us his Wrestlers portfolio as a submission, and in an instant we were in agreement to run it. We haven’t seen such portraits of Scots wrestlers in recent times, if at all, and barely know how the pro-wrestling scene works and operates. That is how Andrew began, seeing a poster, wanting to […]
“I grew up in London and first went up to the island of Vatersay when I was 12. I fell in love with the place immediately and kept returning to the island once or twice a year for many years. It seemed so real after the suburbs of London. Although I was busy photographing the […]
Jim Yorkston’s exhibition opened at the Filmhouse last night. We’ve been on the lookout for an opportunity to feature Jim’s work on the Document Scotland blog so we had a chat with him about this latest work ‘Haneen lil watten’ – meaning ‘A Yearning for my Homeland.’ DS – What’s this new work about and […]
Yes and No: the year 2014 saw Scotland vote in a referendum to decide whether the country should become an independent nation. Document Scotland’s Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert spent much of the time leading up to the poll meeting and photographing people on both sides of the political divide. “Following on from the series of photographs I […]
‘My Addiction, My Photographs’, by Graham MacIndoe Over the past few years Scottish-born photographer Graham MacIndoe has been on what you could call a ‘character building’ trip. From the highs of a successful career in advertising photography to the highs of a serious drug addiction, and the inevitable descent into a world he never thought […]
On September 18th, 2014 the electorate of Scotland went the polls to answer, with a simple or some may believe not-so-simple Yes or No, the question: ‘Should Scotland be an independent country?’ In the run-up to the vote, Document Scotland photographer Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert went on the campaign trail and found it was more a case […]
An exhibition of black and white photographs called ‘Six Percent’ is currently showing at the Eden Court Theatre in Inverness. The work, by Perth based documentary photographer Graham Miller, was carried our over two years in conjunction with Down’s Syndrome Scotland who then funded a print run of the book and the framed images which […]
Sophie was recently invited to speak about Document Scotland as part of TalkSee Photography at Glasgow’s Centre for Contemporary Arts. It was a lively evening – a great turnout with a good debate afterwards and also it was the first time we met Arpita Shah – and saw her speak about her photography. One of […]
Over here at Document Scotland we enjoy the work of Iain Sarjeant, who is based up north, a tad north of Inverness. But Iain’s location doesn’t stop him from wandering the streets of Scotland capturing his quietly observed moments. We’ve previously run some of Iain’s work from his ‘Out of the Ordinary’ project, but here […]
Alan McCredie, an Edinburgh-based photographer, had the genesis of a great project-idea in October 2012. Realising that the Independence referendum was exactly 100 weeks in the future, he decided he would start “100 Weeks of Scotland”, a photographic endeavour to record events and scenes from all over Scotland in the lead up to the referendum. […]
Chris Leslie is a documentary photographer and film-maker based in Glasgow. We were very pleased to feature his work at our Document Scotland Summer Salon event in August last year. For 3 years now, Chris has been working on a long term photography and multimedia project, The Glasgow Renaissance, documenting the city of Glasgow as it […]
Sandy Carson is a Scottish photographer now living in Austin, Texas. He is an established photojournalist in America and has rarely been back to Scotland. Recently however, he returned to catch-up with his family in Newmains, Lanarkshire and started a series of photographs about his folks called, Steadfast Love, a series of intimate portraits including […]
We happened upon the work of Donnie MacLean at a recent Street Level Photoworks portfolio review session. Donnie had come and had brought a small self-published book to show to myself and Sophie. It’s always a nervous moment for the reviewer, will the work be good, or will it be truly awful and you struggle […]
I remember where I was twenty three years ago, on Sunday, February 11th 1990. I remember it clearly. I was sitting in a little blue Ford Fiesta car, for which I can still remember the registration number, my first car. I was stopped at traffic lights in Charing Cross, Glasgow, and the radio was on. […]
At a recent photography show opening in Street Level Gallery, Glasgow, I bumped into Donna Maria Kelly and she told me of her work photographing, as personal mementos, her father’s belongings in the hours after he had died. It was an interesting story and encouraging to hear that Donna, a recent photography course graduate, had […]
Ian Paterson and John Maher are two photographers who found themselves covering the same subject matter in the Hebrides and decided it would be best to join forces and present their work as a joint exhibition and potential book. Document Scotland, a great believer in photographers finding common cause and pooling resources, wanted to find […]
Paul Duke, a Scottish photographer who now lives in London, has completed a series of black and white portraits of the men and women who work in the fishing industry on the North East coast. Each subject was shot uniformly, standing against a dark backdrop in a portable studio which Paul set-up in shipyards, factories […]
Over here at Document Scotland we were recently chatting with photographer Niall McDiarmid, and he mentioned that the Watermill Gallery, in Aberfeldy, were soon to publish two books on Scottish photography. We were intrigued, so we got in touch with Kevin Ramage, publisher of the books and owner of the gallery, and he kindly put aside […]
Craig Buchan has been photographing, the Sisters of the Poor Clare Order, in Humbie, near Edinburgh. The work constitutes a photo exhibition starting at the recently opened Trigg Gallery in Dundas Street, Edinburgh, on August 15th. Gallery is open Monday to Friday 8.30am – 18.30pm and Saturday 8.30am to 13.30pm. Commitment by Craig Buchan. “Sisters Dominique […]
Starting a new series is always a tentative process: The fulfilment of an idea that may have been gathering momentum in a closet somewhere in a corner of your mind. Will a story translate from idea form to visual reality? Will I waste my time working on something that may lead to nothing? The night […]
Spring 2013 was one of the coldest on record – it almost never really came. Farmers all over Scotland were concerned and anxious that by mid April, there was still no sign of grass, that’s pretty much unheard of. 15 foot snow drifts on Arran over Easter and -5 degrees recorded in Fort William added […]
“I’m are very pleased to announce that today Cafe Royal Books, run and published by Craig Atkinson, have published a little limited edition (of 150) ‘zine book of my Common Riding photographs. All the images were shot in 2000, in the Scottish Borders, and 14 of them form the 28page black and white ‘zine. All […]
It had been a long day. I had started early, going straight to Home-Start Levenmouth offices and interviewing all who worked there. It was just before Christmas and everyone was running around trying to organise the bags of presents which had been donated. Never ending lists filled with children’s names were being checked off and […]
As our inaugural Document Scotland exhibition, “Seeing Ourselves”, opens this week in Glenrothes, we are featuring a blog each week for the duration of the exhibition from all contributing photographers. The feature is called, “Why I Took this Picture”, and needs no further explanation. First-up, Stephen McLaren, on his photograph, “Dolly”. “When the weather disappoints […]
Over here at Document Scotland we were recently excited to find out that Craig Atkinson, under his Cafe Royal Books publishing name, was going to be publishing a book of photographs from the Gorbals area of Glasgow, by renowned advertising and portrait photographer John Claridge. Our curiosity was piqued, we hadn’t known that John Claridge […]
Hannah Laycock‘s sensitive and emotive series “Railing At The Enthrallment To The Failing Of The Light II” is a quiet and personal glipse into living with Motor Neurone Disease. When Document Scotland was sent this work by Hannah for consideration we were instantly fascinated. The personal and honest nature of the project along with the […]
Ben Roberts‘ series Higher Lands shows a contemporary and youthful look at life growing up in parts of the Highlands. We’re really delighted to take the opportunity to feature it here on the Document Scotland site. All of us at Document Scotland know Ben’s work well, and this project is one which we’ve been talking […]
On a brilliantly bright, icy cold, winter Sunday afternoon recently I caught up with Giulietta Verdon Roe over coffee and cake. I knew that Giulietta had made several visits to the remote Scottish island of North Ronaldsay over a number of years to create a documentary photographic project of the population and character of the […]
We’re very pleased to be able to show the Shetland photographs, from the 1970s, of Scottish photographer Tom Kidd. The work was originally published as ‘Life In Shetland’, by publisher Paul Harris, and it is this book that we saw, in the home of Edinburgh photographer Murdo MacLeod, which caught our interest. Tom Kidd has […]
“A couple of months ago Document Scotland were invited by Stephen Mather, at the City of Glasgow College, to give a talk on documentary photography, and also to set a brief for the student’s documentary photography module on which they were about to embark. We chose the title, or subject, of ‘Self’ as the brief, […]
In 2013, Document Scotland were approached by Gemma Ovens, at the time a student at the City of Glasgow College, about showing her photographic work on the Skeklers, and skekling tradition from the Shetland Isles, and we felt both that the images Gemma had sent over were so interesting, so strange looking, and also that […]
“Bad Things Happen Behind Closed Doors” by Yoshi Kametani. Japanese-American photographer, Yoshi Kametani proves the dictum that it often takes an outsider to show a country – or a part of it – as it really is. Yoshi, who is only just embarking on his photographic career, has made a brutally honest depiction of a group […]
Renowned London-based editorial and reportage photographer David Levenson has had a small zine published via Cafe Royal Books, showcasing his photographs of the Burry Man tradition in South Queensferry, Scotland. We thought it a great little set of images, and nice to see archive work finding new uses. We asked David via email if he’d be […]
Glasgow-born press photographer Brian Anderson has for many years work on his self-initiated and self-funded project ‘FACES, A Photographic Journey Through The Underworld’. The result of this work is a two volume book which depicts the British criminal underworld, portraying the leading figures or ‘Faces’, and documenting the lifestyle of the participants, the gangland killings […]