Portrait work, class in the outdoors, and a ‘banned’ film…
Tuath
A long-term local portrait project - Tuath - found a small outlet recently with work for Alzheimer’s Scotland. I spent several hours with Jean (over several months), learning about a place that was special to her and why, before we made some photographs at that place and developed a small testimony. This is my own favourite image from the day.
My input was gifted to the organisation, who are supported through the National Heritage Lottery Fund 2030 programme delivered by Cairngorms National Park. You can see the Park’s own news post about the work and some of the photos, here
Rooted
Another piece of work along similar lines - Rooted – is the result of a week-long residency in Glen Tanar, supported by Cairngorms National Park and The Bothy Project. Storyteller Sarah Hobbs and myself spoke to 19 people with connections to the glen, whose voices are less often heard. From well over 500 images and video clips, and 20 hours of voice recordings, we made a 30min audio visual documentary. The trailer is here, or by clicking the image below.
Sadly, a private view for the participants was postponed on the day of screening, and public screenings at Ballater Winter Festival were also cancelled. The owners of the estate are unhappy about the content of the work. I am currently seeking legal advice and will be glad to resolve the apparent issues, as it’s work that both Sarah and I are still happy about.
Stay Classy
I’ve been writing about class for the ‘Editor’s Welcome’ in the April ‘26 issue of The Great Outdoors. I found it more difficult than usual to be completely honest.
I wrote about class in the outdoors for Sidetracked magazine a year or two ago, and Grace over Gravity is now on my website, here, to read for free. This was another side-story from the Ecrin (as is the photo below). The original working title was Porters of Shame… I guess the gap between those two titles is one way of illustrating the space that working class culture workers still need to navigate when dealing with the subject in an overwhelmingly middle class (British, outdoors) media.
