Best Scottish Photography

The Scots A Photohistory. Following its invention in 1839, a craze for photography ripped through Scotland, and over the next 100 years Scottish photographers captured an impressive visual record of their land and its people, their mixed fortunes, hopes and aspirations. Their achievements document a century of profound contrasts, of division, upheaval and change that recast forever the character of Scotland. This volume presents the triumphs of a self-confident Scotland, the completion of the Forth Bridge and the stream of vessels that slid down the slipways of the Clyde to bind together a far-flung empire, but also its injustices, the story of the rural and urban poor, and the Clearances that drove people from the land to seek work in the cities or new hope in emigration to the New World. Gordon Highlanders drinking whisky from enamel buckets in the New Year celebrations of 1890; the caves of Staffa and their association with the mythical Celtic hero, Finigal; the grandeur of Edinburgh Catle; a portrait of John Logie Baird, Scottish scientist-hero and inventor of the television; the golfers of Scotscraig a mere decade after the invention of photography; or salmon fishing in the Ness Islands, this visual history brings the country to life not only for those of Scottish descent but for everyone who has enjoyed the rich character and landscape of this nation. The Scots: A Photohistory.


Scotland's Coast A Photographer's Journey. Joe Cornish has turned his attention to the magnificent scenery of Scotland's 6,000-mile coastline. He has travelled from the Mull of Galloway in the south to the tip of Unst in the Shetlands, the northernmost point in the British Isles, and from remote St Kilda out in the Atlantic to the Sands of Forvie National Nature Reserve on the North Sea to capture the enormous variety of scenery that characterises the Scottish seacoast. Some of the sites he has photographed, like St Kilda or the sandstone peaks overlooking Loch Torridon, belong to the National Trust for Scotland, but many others are privately owned; some, like the majestic Cuillins on Skye, are well-known to tourists, others are hidden coves or remote sea stacks that few visitors will ever have seen. Whatever the subject, be it a wide Hebridean vista or fragmentary patterns of ice on a frozen beach, Joe Cornish, with his artist's eye and his dramatic use of light, helps us to look at it afresh and reveals new and unsuspected beauties. In the text which accompanies his photographs he explains the aspects of each particular landscape that made it special to him, its geology, its flora, its history or its associations. The result is a stunning book book which will delight Cornish's legion of admirers and all those who have found enchantment on Scotland's wonderful coastline. Scotland's Coast: A Photographer's Journey.


Scotland The Wild Places. This latest collection of panoramic photographs by award-winning photographer Colin Prior celebrates the breathtaking scenery of Scotland's wildland areas. It follows the longstanding success of his earlier book Highland Wilderness. Whereas Highland Wilderness focused on the issues involved in conserving the Highlands, this time Prior presents a mature reflection on the space and silence of those wild places, a salutory reminder to people that even in today's world such places do exist. His remarkable images encourage stewardship of the Highlands by inspiration rather than rhetoric. Scotland: The Wild Places.


Islay and Jura Images of Scotland. The most westerly point of Argyll, Islay and Jura occupy a special place in Scotland's history, home to MacDonald, 'Lords of the Isles', as well as to the famous blend of Bowmore's Whisky Distillery. The fields and hills hold an abundance of wildlife, making it an ideal spot for farming, fishing and rambling, while its ruins speak of the impact of the nineteenth century's mass emigration and the clearances. Lord George Robertson brings his perceptive eye and lens to these different aspects of two of Scotland's most beautiful islands. This book forms part of a new series of images of Scotland's most beautiful scenery taken by some of its finest photographers. These books are not simply pictures of what we can see from our car window, nor simply misty landscapes but photography which gets to the heart of both the landscape and its human component. While covering all the main attractions in an area the photographers have sought out the quirky, the curious and the unknown to give a new dimension to a land we all thought we knew. Islay and Jura (Images of Scotland).