An email slipped into our Document Scotland inboxes recently which we felt would be good to share with everyone, telling us of a new book out on Thomas Annan, Scottish documentary photographer. “…latest Open Access book, Thomas Annan of Glasgow: Pioneer of the Documentary Photograph by Lionel Gossman, a study of nineteenth-century photography, urban life, and Scotland – […]
Fareweel to a’ oor Scottish fameFareweel oor ancient gloryFareweel even tae oor Scottish nameSae famed in martial storyNoo Sark runs o’er the Solway sandsTweed runs tae the oceanTae mark whereEngland’s province standsSuch a parcel o’ rogues in a nation – Robert Burns, 1791 In 2013, I began a twelve-month journey to trace Scotland’s border with […]
We caught up recently with Donnie MacLean, whose work we have featured previously, to see what he has been up to on the streets and we were pleased to hear that he’s just about to launch new work in a new photography show along with a book, ‘A Glasgow Kiss’. Below we share some of […]
We delivered four lovely boxes of prints and a hard drive of digital files to St Andrews this week and are very pleased that Document Scotland’s work has now become one of the most recent acquisitions to the St Andrews University Special Collection. Document Scotland started working with Marc Boulay and the University of St […]
To most right-thinking people, all it involves is 22 men (or women) chasing an inflated leather sphere around a grassy field in a pointless physical activity of no consequence. To the rest of us it’s an obsession: football, otherwise known as our national sport. I’ve been bewitched by the sport since my dad took me […]
Keith Ingham‘s photographs, taken from 1976 – 1979, were shot as part of a project for The People’s Palace Museum. Large parts of Glasgow’s East End, especially in Calton, were due for major demolition and it was felt the soon-to-be-disrupted community should be recorded. This series of images documents life not only in the East […]
EMPTY SHOP, by Kenneth Gray Starting in July 2014, the Empty Shop series came about more by chance than planning. Whilst walking my dog around Edinburgh, with a camera ever-ready, I started to see shops which had lain empty for some time, stripped of fittings and ready for let or sale. Desolate and unused and […]
It was, we were constantly reminded in the media and elsewhere, a year like no other. Certainly, for those of us who wield a camera for a living or for enjoyment – or both – there was no shortage of subject matter on which we could focus our energies on in Scotland in 2014. From […]
Published some years ago by the World Jewish Congress, Jewish Communities of the World is a slim anthology providing a snapshot of the history of Jewish people in each country of the world at the end of the 20th century. In dates and numbers, it lists how many Jews are living in their respective countries and […]
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 […]
Document Scotland is thrilled to announce that Harry Benson CBE, one of the world’s leading photographers of the last sixty years, and a proud son of Clarkston, Glasgow, has agreed to be our honorary patron. Harry who lives in New York and Florida, has shot so many iconic pictures from the 20th century that it […]
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 […]
September 2014. Highs, lows, an historical and unforgettable week for Scotland. Here are some of the images shot by Colin McPherson, Sophie Gerrard, Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert and Stephen McLaren in the lead up to and over the 18th September 2014. The world was watching, and so were we… (above: Alex Salmond and a supporter take a […]
What is it like to be sixteen now? This work began in 2014 as an exploration of the lives, hopes and dreams of 16 year olds across Scotland. At that time they had been granted a unique responsibility, for the first time in a UK political vote, 16 year olds could vote in the Scottish […]
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 […]
To kick start our joining Common Ground show at Street Level Photoworks, with our friends from A Fine Beginning photo collective from Wales, we’re holding some folio review sessions on August 29th, from 2pm – 4pm. One photographer from Document Scotland will join one photographer from A Fine Beginning and together we can review your folios! […]
There’s a lot going on in DocuScot House, but we wanted to post a couple of items which our great colleagues of Impressions Gallery have kindly made and posted to promote our Beyond The Border show at Impressions, which is running at the gallery until 27th September…. For some background reading, to give the viewers of […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Tunnock’s, the iconic Scottish, family-owned chocolate company is headed by Boyd Tunnock CBE, the founder’s grandson, who celebrated his 80th birthday in 2012. The company was established in 1890 by Thomas Tunnock and still produces the iconic snowballs, caramel wafers, caramel logs and Tunnock’s teacakes famous all over Scotland and the world. With it’s perfect […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
We are delighted to announce a partnership with the Scotland’s oldest university that will see our photography become part of one of country’s most important photographic archives. This new collaboration between the University of St Andrews and Document Scotland will unite some of the oldest photographs in Scotland with contemporary documentary images. The initiative will […]
Our busy year of events has begun: an exhibition of work by Document Scotland opened earlier this month at the Scotland House Conference Centre in Brussels. Entitled Five by Four, the show comprises separate bodies of work from the four Document Scotland photographers, each of which were responding to themes and ideas behind the Scottish […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
No, it’s not the members of Document Scotland lining up for their annual photograph but rather War, Death, Pestilence, Famine, otherwise known as the Four Dwarfmen of the Apocalypse, who featured in the Easdale community pantomime held on the tiny island in Argyll just after the New Year took shape and photographed by Colin McPherson. Unlike […]
Although it has been a number of years since Document Scotland’s Colin McPherson produced the main body of work in his Catching the Tide series, the photographs of his long-term project documenting the lives of Scotland’s remaining salmon net fishermen continue to be published. A new book entitled The Salmon Fishers – a history of […]
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. […]
A week, as the old saying goes, is a long time in politics. But how do we measure 18 years? On another of many historic days in modern Scottish politics, the government of our devolved parliament today launches its White Paper, setting out a prospectus for an independent Scotland. Spool back almost exactly 18 years […]
We’ve been here before! Seeing all the images this week in the media from the Govan shipyard in Glasgow, reminded me of the last time the yard was in crisis and under threat of closure and redundancies. On 14th April 1999, I was dispatched along with reporter Jack O’Sullivan by the Independent to get over […]