Unseasonably Warm by Alexander Williamson

Margaret Mitchell interviews Alexander Williamson

Margaret recently caught up with Alexander Williamson to discuss his ongoing work Unseasonably Warm. Here, Alexander shares the background and motivations on his project as well as reflections on the wider climate change issues it speaks to.

Melted snowmen, ColyumbridgeDate: 26 February 2022. Time: 3.46pm. Temperature: 6 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: Your project Unseasonably Warm considers the impact of climate change on the skiing industry in Scotland. What made you embark on this work, concentrating specifically on this area? 

AW: Unseasonably Warm is a confluence of long-standing thoughts, influences and preoccupations. Childhood nostalgia, and a parent’s concern for the future. A commentary on financial precarity, economic decline and depopulation in rural Scotland. And an exploration of what can and cannot be observed when attempting to document climate change.

My first experiences of visiting Scotland were to ski at the Lecht, Cairngorm and Glenshee. So I retain those childhood memories of coming to a cold, wild and slightly alien place – but one which became more familiar over time. And coming up from Cheshire, visiting Scotland to ski was as much about the excitement of the journey as it was about being here. 

My family and I relocated from London to Scotland in 2016. Proximity to these ski areas wasn’t a determining factor in moving up, but it was a bonus. Sadly the ski seasons have been poor since we moved up – warm and wet usually; save for during the pandemic, when there were two good seasons but the centres weren’t able to open. Global temperatures have continued to rise since then, and the centres have been struggling. 

As a documentary photographer, I had wanted to photograph Scotland’s ski centres for a while. There’s an obvious juxtaposition there, between the man-made architecture and infrastructure with the shapes and forms of the surrounding landscape. As a snowsports enthusiast, I’m working on a sister project focused on Alpine ski resorts –– and since I started that, you’re beginning to see the impacts of climate change in Europe – but in Scotland skiing has a history of being ever-so-slightly DIY. Which is just an observation, not a criticism. So this project comes from a place of concern, of irony – but also fondness, and a sliver of hope that things might change.

The Lecht Date: 12 January 2022. Time 2.30pm. Temperature: 5 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: Would you say that living in an area where you directly witness the impact of climate change has driven you to pursue this type of work? Does your personal connection offer an expanded insight perhaps?

AW: I live in Nairn, a coastal town on the Moray firth which is quite vulnerable to sea level rises. It has its own microclimate, which means it is generally warmer and drier than other parts of the UK. Since 2021/22, it has been noticeably warmer during the winter months, with fewer periods of sustained cold. Warmer and windier, for sure. This month for example (November 2024) we’ve seen temperatures several degrees above the monthly average – for several days at a stretch. This seems to be a cause for some celebration locally, judging by my social media feed. People don’t see a problem with it being unseasonably warm – but most climate scientists would say it’s indicative of a bigger issue.

There’s definitely a personal connection to skiing in Scotland but probably less so than, say, someone who has lived all their life in Braemar and experienced skiing every year. They may have a completely different perspective. I’m a bit wary about thinking that my photography offers an expanded insight to any subject. Also, as someone who hasn’t studied photography – other than in my spare time – I’m always feeling my way around it. This is probably the first subject where I really thought about what I wanted to capture when I went out with my camera and notebook.   

The Lecht Mine, Moray Date: 12 January 2022. Time: 9.50am. Temperature: 6 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: You mention that some of Scotland’s ski centres are already promoting themselves as ‘activity resorts’ because of this change. Are the wider implications for the local economy part of what you want to raise within this work?

AW: Yes, absolutely. It’s fairly well known that the centres need snow and winter visitors for their businesses to remain viable. This year the Lecht had to run a crowdfunding campaign to recoup income lost after another year with no snow. HIE has invested heavily into Cairngorm Mountain with the funicular, but the local area loses money every skiable day that the railway remains closed. All the centres are pivoting, but snowsports brings more visitor spend, whether that’s buying a season ticket, hiring equipment, or getting lunch at the café. Then there’s the apres lifestyle down the hill, which benefits hospitality businesses in surrounding towns. Walkers and mountain bikers don’t party like skiers, so that’s a market that simply wouldn’t match the income from snowsports. Then there are those who are employed by the centres.

In its heyday, locals could depend upon Scottish skiing for employment during the winter months – whether that was operating lifts, working in the café or as ski instructors. It also provided employment for oversees workers. Now you have that double whammy of it being much more precarious employment, and fewer people are being employed. That, plus the drop in winter visitor numbers, will have a big effect on the industry and the regional economy.   

Manufactured snow, The LechtDate: 12 January 2022. Time: 10.30am. Temperature: 4 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: You mention memories of ski visits in the 80s and 90s, what would you say has changed in that time? 

AW: In terms of the infrastructure serving the centres at the Lecht and Glenshee, not all that much! Cairngorm has seen quite a bit of transformative investment, which was perhaps intended to give it something of a competitive advantage, but has rather backfired somewhat, while others haven’t been able to invest as much. The Lecht has built a new visitor lodge and café since I last skied there in the 1980s. And there are more snow cannons dotted about, and all have acquired shipping containers containing snow making machines that can make snow even when temperatures are above freezing. So there have been some small changes, but when you compare that to what other Alpine resorts have, it’s all rather small scale. 

And there’s the rub. In terms of socio-economics – and the cultural ramifications of this shift – skiers and snowboarders from the UK and beyond have largely abandoned Scotland for the Alps. Climate change is partly to blame for that, but it’s also an indicator of social mobility, and of the spending power of the global leisure class. Skiing has always had something aspirational – or to its detractors, elitist – about it. But skiing in Scotland was probably more accessible for people on lower incomes. When I was a kid, my mum and dad and their friends from the local Round Table and Ladies Circle would come up to Blairgowrie en masse for the annual Table ski weekend; this always took place in March, and we always skied. Today, because the snow is so uncertain, you don’t see people committing to a week’s – or even a weekend’s – skiing in Scotland anymore. Instead, these same couples will ski two to three times a year in the Alps. And that is money being spent overseas that could have been spent at Scotland’s ski centres. 

Glenshee Ski Centre Date: 12 January 2022. Time: 12.20pm. Temperature: 4 degrees centigrade
“A snow factory creates a great base station area throughout the season.” (Source: VisitCairngorms)
©Alexander Williamson

MM: You pair images with descriptions of place, date and temperature. Do you see your work as working on both aesthetic and educational levels? What do you consider as your main aims for making this project?

AW: The aesthetic is principally documentary, but the inclusion of the empirical data could be construed as educational. I suppose the pairing came from the need to communicate what I was feeling about the subject as well as what I was seeing, and to locate the photographs in a specific moment in time – whether that was surface or deep time, social, ecological, geological. They’re all sites of memory for me – some I have visited in the past, some I have seen from a distance and been intrigued by but not been able to visit; and sites of memory for others, whose lived experiences are both present and absent in the photographs.

With this project I’m reaching to convey this presence and absence – and the sense that this very niche human activity is becoming increasingly precarious and may soon disappear. I think I’m mostly interested in the factual content of these photographs, and my being there at a given time. Here is a place, this is the time, this was the temperature. How will this scene be different in ten years? And implicit within that is, who cares? I know I do, albeit through this solipsistic prism of nostalgia – but do others?  

Derelict hotel, Carrbridge Date: 26 February 2022. Time: 10.35am. Temperature: 7 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: Looking at images such as the abandoned Struan House Hotel and the ruined Spittal of Glenshee Hotel gives a sense of an area in decline, is this what you are witnessing or are there also signs of recovery in tourism? 

AW: It’s probably undeniable that ski tourism to Scotland is severely dwindling. The climate is changing, visitor numbers dropping, ski centres are pivoting. The Struan House Hotel has finally been demolished, but the Spittal of Glenshee Hotel remains as this fire-gutted ruin. It is a sad sight, and you can’t help but think that in another, more prosperous part of the world – the Lake District, say, or an Alpine resort in Europe – the site would have been brought back into use much more quickly.

Ruined Spittal of Glenshee Hotel Date: 12 January 2022. Time: 1.45pm. Temperature: 5 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

Ironically, there has been some investment into marketing the Snow Roads – specifically the A93 and the A939 – and the towns they connect as year-round visitor destinations. But there’s not a huge amount of actual snow present in the marketing materials! And when you visit these places in the warming winter months, there is this very definite air of abandonment, of seasonal closure, businesses that have closed and others that are just about hanging on. 

The A939 outside Tomintoul Date: 12 January 2022. Time: 2.52pm. Temperature: 7 degrees centigrade
©Alexander Williamson

MM: The work is currently on exhibition in Inverness until the 7th of December. Do you see the work as finished now or is it a project you will continue with? If so, what’s next?

AW: The ski areas are huge, and there’s much more that could be photographed, so I plan to revisit them this winter. I haven’t visited Glencoe or the Nevis Range yet, and I am hoping to access some funding to enable me to do that. So it’s a project that I would like to continue with, absolutely – though of course, I’d far prefer to see the centres enjoy a few good winters and busy seasons that could help sustain them for a few more years. 

This project has formed the start point for an Mres at the Centre for Living Sustainability at UHI Inverness, which will take a more overtly ethnographic approach to find out how people connected to snowsports feel about climate change. Do people share my concerns, do they feel there’s nothing to worry about, or are they resigned to the change? Very early days with my research – using snowball sampling, ironically enough – but it is beginning to build some momentum.

Exhibition at Eden Court Theatre and Cinema, Inverness
©Alexander Williamson

Share this:

Categories: Explore Interviews

Since 2012, this website has been dedicated to featuring not only the collective's projects but also nurturing an archive that highlights the diverse documentary work created by numerous photographers throughout Scotland. Please consider supporting the work we do on Patreon if you can. Thank you.

Become a Patron!