A Contested Land

Document Scotland’s A Contested Land has now opened at the Martin Parr Foundation in Bristol, England. The show runs until 16th March, 2019, before further showings in Scotland at Perth, Dunoon and Inverness. It gives us great pleasure to announce that our latest show, A Contested Land, successfully opened last week at the Martin Parr Foundation. Surrounded by friends, family, […]

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Oot Tae Play

The British Journal of Photography recently announced their shortlist of photographers for their Portrait of Britain photo project, and we’re delighted that photographers and work from Scotland made the cut. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert‘s portrait from Langholm Common Riding (from his Unsullied and Untarnished book of the Scottish Common Ridings) was selected, as are two portraits be Edinburgh-based Euan Myles (and […]

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St Andrews Photography Festival & Salon

Celebrating 175 years of Scottish Photography in the home of Scottish Photography We at Document Scotland are very pleased to involved with the first ever St Andrews Photography Festival 2016 where we will be presenting a Document Scotland public exhibition and a free Salon  afternoon of talks, multimedia and discussion about documentary photography in Scotland. […]

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Scottish National Galleries blog – Sophie Gerrard

Our exhibition The ties That Bind is now in its final month at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery – and to mark this, Sophie has written a blog piece for the Scottish National Portrait Gallery talking about how she made her work Drawn To The Land. In 2013 I began an exploration of my own […]

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Panel Discussion – Women on the Land – 9th March 2016

On Wednesday 9th March at 12:45pm Sophie will be taking part in a panel discussion with historian Dr Elizabeth Ritchie (University of the Highlands and Islands) and crofter and writer Liz Paul, will look at the history and context of women crofters in Scotland and beyond. This panel discussion will take place in The Scottish […]

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Salon event 2016

Our Salon events for 2016 start next month, and we are delighted to be partnering with the University of Highlands and Islands to bring you events across Scotland. On the 18th February 2016 we will be hosting an event from Perth College which will be streamed live to venues across Scotland. We hope you’ll be […]

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Common Ground Exhibition – Part Two!

Happy 2016 everyone – to kick start this year Document Scotland have once again joined forces with our good friends the Welsh collective A Fine Beginning. Continuing our theme of collaboration and partnership to show our exhibition Common Ground. The exhibition opening evening (to which you are all most welcome) is on Thuesday 4th February […]

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National Galleries events – Curators’ Tour

On Thursday 14th January 2016 Anne Lyden, International Photography Curator of our exhibition “The Ties That Bind” currently on at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery, will lead a tour of the exhibition from 5pm – 5:30pm. All are welcome – this event is FREE. For more information please see here

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National Galleries events – Malcolm Dickson talk

Malcolm Dickson, director of Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow will give a lunchtime talk on 13th January at The Scottish National Galleries to accompany our exhibition “The Ties That Bind” currently on at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery. All are welcome – this event is FREE. For more information please see here

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Mother Father, by Lucie Rachel

At a recent Street Level Photoworks ‘In Focus’ event, looking at book publishing, which we attended, we had the pleasure of listening to Lucie Rachel discuss her book-in-progress, ‘Mother Father’, a story documenting the relationship of her parents. Impressed with the work, and Lucie’s approach, we asked if we could showcase it here. Lucie kindly […]

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Sophie on BBC Landward and BBC Radio Scotland

This month Document Scotland’s exhibition ‘The Ties That Bind’  at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh has been featured on BBC TV and Radio. Sophie was filmed talking about her long term project about women, farming and the landscape, ‘Drawn To The Land’ on BBC1’s Landward and was interviewed for Radio Scotland’s Out of […]

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Unsullied And Untarnished

To coincide with our new exhibition, ‘The Ties That Bind‘, on now at the Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh, until April 2016, Jeremy has published a book of his work,  ‘Unsullied And Untarnished’, portraying the Common Riding festivals of the Scottish Borders. The same work forms Jeremy’s contribution to our SNPG show. ‘Unsullied And Untarnished’ is photographic portrait […]

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“The Ties That Bind” talks – 26th September

Our exhibition at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery – “The Ties That Bind” opens soon. To accompany the opening of the exhibition, we will be presenting our work and talking about our projects at the Portrait Gallery, on Saturday 26th September from 2-3pm. The event is free, and all 4 of us will be speaking […]

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Collecting The Gorbals.

A Stroll Through The Gorbals To walk in the Gorbals area of Glasgow is to walk through a district of this city immortalised in iconic photographs, a district whose name is known far and wide, for better or for worse, and whose history has been captured in silver by some of the great photojournalists of […]

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From the series Methil © Gregor Schmatz 2015

Methil – by Gregor Schmatz

Gregor Schmatz has recently finished a BA Photography at Edinburgh Napier University. Document Scotland caught up with him and had a chat about his ongoing degree show project about Methil in Fife, Scotland. DS: Tell us a little about yourself Gregor, and why you decided to make this particular project. GS: I was born in […]

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Big Hooses Built on the Backs of Slaves by Stephen McLaren

In the last six months I have been shooting a project which examines Scotland’s links with the slave-based sugar economy of Jamaica in the 18th and 19th Century. I visited Jamaica in early Spring and shot photographs of properties which were owned Scottish plantation-owners owned and which grew sugar-cane using the forced labour of African […]

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The Bigger Picture

It’s always a nice way to start the day when a beautiful new publication arrives on your doorstep. What made yesterday even better was that the publication was unexpected, and that Document Scotland are featured in it. The Bigger Picture: The Work of Impressions Gallery is a clever and comprehensive retrospective of Impressions Gallery. “Since […]

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The History Woman

As the 2015 UK General Election campaign gathers pace, we are being bombarded by soundbites and overwhelmed by statistics whilst politicians appear on every television screen, newspaper and website we look at. There’s no getting away from politics, for the next couple of months, at least. So we at Document Scotland are going to add […]

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New Talent…

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 […]

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New book by Marc Wilson

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 […]

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Common Ground – our new publication

We’re delighted to announce that to accompany our ‘Common Ground’ exhibition at Street Level Photoworks, Glasgow, we have self-published an 84-page colour publication, and one which we can offer exclusively for sale here. Including two photo essays from each Document Scotland member, Sophie Gerrard, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Colin McPherson and Stephen McLaren, ‘Common Ground’ takes a look […]

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Common Ground – Press Release

This important and timely exhibition showcases groundbreaking new work from some of Wales and Scotland’s contemporary photographers. Document Scotland, formed in 2012 by Colin McPherson, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert, Sophie Gerrard and Stephen McLaren, are responding to the global audience looking at Scotland at this, one of the most important times in the country’s history. Formed in […]

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Talks and Portfolio Reviews at Impressions Gallery

Last weekend, on an incredibly hot and sunny day in Bradford, Document Scotland took part in a busy and successful day of portfolio reviews and talks at Impressions Gallery as part of Beyond The Border: New Contemporary Photography from Scotland. Sophie, Colin and Jeremy joined the team at Impressions to talk to a number of talented […]

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North by North West

Document Scotland are hitting the road next month. We are heading to the Highlands and Argyll to host the first of a series of four salon events across the country which will present the work we will be showing at our forthcoming exhibition at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow. There will be presentations in person […]

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Beyond The Border opening night…

The opening evening of Beyond The Border at Impressions Gallery in Bradford on Thursday 3rd July was a great success, thank you all so much for coming. We were delighted to see so many new and familiar faces there, enjoying the photography, the conversation, the wine and of course, the Tunnock’s Caramel Wafers. Document Scotland […]

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e-invite

Beyond The Border – Impressions Gallery – You’re invited!

We’ve been furiously checking prints, sending work to the framers, proofing text, editing, making phonecalls, and finishing long term projects shot over the last year or more in preparation for our group show, Beyond The Border: New Contemporary Photography from Scotland at Impressions Gallery in Bradford. We are delighted to invite you to the opening […]

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A night at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery

We are still buzzing after such an interesting, creative and energetic evening at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery last night for Document Scotland’s 1st ever portrait event “Face To Face: The Portrait in Photography Today”. Thank you to the photographers which Document Scotland invited to take part along side us, Ben Roberts, Arpita Shah, Emily […]

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Jim Yorkston – Haneen lil watten

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 […]

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Face to Face: The Photographers

So folks, we are now very excited to confirm the following details about the work being presented at our event Face To Face: The Portrait In Photography Today at The Scottish National Portrait Gallery on the 14th May 2014. Colin McPherson will present a short multimedia entitled ‘In the Company of Strangers’ in which he […]

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A man takes his early morning walk at 5am, with his radio through the streets of downtown Yangon, Myanmar. @ Sophie Gerrard, all rights reserved.

Portrait Salon exhibition January 2014

Following on from the success of the Document Scotland Portrait Salon event at Stills Gallery in Edinburgh – we are delighted that the first ever printed Portrait Salon exhibition will take place from January 10th 2014 at new venue FUSE Art Space in Bradford. The exhibition features a cross section of the best contemporary portrait […]

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Document Scotland presents... Portrait Salon image

12.11.13 – Document Scotland presents…. Portrait Salon

What is a portrait? A person, a look, a gaze, a moment, a superficial facade or a glimpse of raw honesty, something beautiful, something shocking. It can be all these things and more…. Document Scotland are delighted to team up with our good friends Portrait Salon to host the launch event of Portrait Salon 2013 […]

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DOC001 newspaper

We’ve decided to showcase some of our many projects and work in a new Document Scotland publication, a 16 page colour newspaper, with the catchy title of DOC001. Primarily designed and published for our own use, we’re so happy with the look of it that we thought we’d also offer them to the readers of […]

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Easdale’s World Stone Skimming Championships

Last week, the island of Easdale was in the news about a threat to a world-class sporting event held on its square mile of craggy slate anchored off the Argyll coast. Apparently the island’s owner wanted to cancel the island’s premier sporting event of the season, the World Stone Skimming Championships, for not providing a […]

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Crossing Paths

Scottish photographer Niall McDiarmid was recently awarded a prize for portraiture in the International Photography Awards for his current Crossing Paths portraiture project,  an ongoing project which stands as a social document of the looks and styles of people on the streets of the UK at present. Niall kindly agreed to answer a few emailed questions from Document Scotland about the background to […]

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Doomen and Dookits / Robert Ormerod

Young Scottish photographer Robert Ormerod has had his ‘Doomen’ series, a project of portraits of pigeon keepers, published in The Guardian Weekend magazine. The images comprise a beautiful set of portraits, quiet moments of the men and women with their pigeons, a breed of pigeon known as Horseman Thief Pouters. The images were shot in […]

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