Over the years I have been to most parts of England and Wales. However apart from business visits to Edinburgh I have rarely visited Scotland. In fact I have only been there twice on holiday. Once was a wonderful week spent on the shores of Loch Lomand. However, as beautiful as it is, that is tamed tourist friendly Scotland. For truly wild Scotland you need to head further North and I have only done that once, a long time ago when I and a couple of college pals spent a week under canvas at the foot of Ben Nevis in Fort William.
During that time I experienced the utter misery of walking and camping in total driving Scottish rain to the point where your boots and waterproofs become so sodden that you feel you are walking in cold, damp newspaper.
I also still remember the stunning beauty of the landscape, the huge but ancient hills and the feeling of isolation, unique in this crowded isle.
Much to my chagrin and nagging regret, I have never been back since. So when I heard about a new book by photographer Alex Nail, I knew I needed a copy.
So was it a worthy purchase? Read below for my review
The Review
In an age where photographers seem almost daily to head to Iceland, it is easy to forget that a similar wilderness exist in the UK without the need to fly. An obvious question is why this part of the world does not see the same number of UK photographers.
One of the answers is provided by Google Maps. If I wanted to go to the same areas this book covers it would take me, from the midlands, about 10 hours driving.
That is a long way. To put it in context, if I time it right, I could get get virtually to Berlin in the same time, or the even French Alps. Although geographically they appears close, they feel a distant, almost a foreign country.
This feeling of non-Britishness is futher backed up by the location names. Assynt and Coigach, Beinn na h'Eaglaise, Loch Kishorn. All these names hint of a deeper older history, one as someone whose family as English as can be, feel little synergy. In that ways North West Scotland can feel as alien and as foreign as Iceland or Greenland.
Then there is the logistics issue. Google maps show that, compared to the pampered luxury for someone used to the peak or lake district, towns are few and far between. This means to catch the sunrise there is no alternative other wild camp, perched on rocky escarpments, miles from the nearest cafe or mobile phone signal. You have to be dedicated to your art as well as versed in the craft of mountain hiking to take these images.
Of course just being someone who can walk up hills and is willing to put up with living in a small tent in a howling Scottish gale does not mean that you will end up with great photos. You also need to be someone who knows how one end of a camera from another and how best to realise their vision of the landscape onto the photographic medium.
It is clear that Alex Nail can do this. Oh boy, can he do this.
The book
The temptation would of been to give the book a glossy front cover, but instead the book itself is wrapped in a beige hessian. It gives it a timeless, classy feel. It a book that could of been made anytime from today to the 1930s. It says there is no need to for a hard sell, the images inside will sell itself.
Inside it is divided into 4 areas, The Coulin hills, Torridon, Assynt and Coigach and the intriguingly titled "The great wilderness" which covers the area Loch Maree and Loch Brown.
In his introduction the author states the challenges and hardships of bringing the book to fruition. Not least, that the book was self published, meaning its success and failure would directly affect the authors pocket. I am always more likely to support books that have a direct connection to the author, which is was why, despite the temptations when I was sent two books by mistake, I felt beholden to return the 2nd copy.
The author also expresses that he wanted to show a literal landscape, not a idealised or abstract one. In then world of digital manipulation, there is always the temptation to manipulate the viewer to show a landscape that does not really exist. The only manipulation is time, compressing many years of work into a snapshot impossible to realise with a few visits to the area.
The photos
So what about the images themselves?
Unlike many landscapes images you see on twitbook nowadays, the images do not grab you by the eye balls and slap your brain into submission. Instead they are more subtle, one that takes a while of quiet study to bring out their full effect. This is a book which is best seen in natural daylight, which allows the subtlety of the highland colours to be fully realised. I'm pretty sure that the saturation dial was barely touched in the making of these prints. As a consequence these are images you can look at again and again and each time see new detail and points of interest.
Saying that there are standout images, such as the one of "Garbh Eilean and Slioch" which would grace any wall.
From a photographic point of view, it was interesting how Alex broke with normal photographic rules. When I was last in Scotland I had a old film SLR, but never achieved much with it. I took many images of the highlands, but once developed they all felt flat, and and to my disappointment did not reflect the image I saw at the time . Later I learned tricks like putting foreground objects into the shot or getting colleagues to pose to provide scale and context. Alex however generally eschews these tricks. You will not see hikers posing on crag tops, and foreground items, when seen, are there only because they existed, not to make a photographic point.
This should of resulted in flat uninteresting landscapes, but it doesn't. That is because Alex is a master in using the light and shadows to provide the scale, relief and contour. Its a great lesson for any aspiring landscape photographer, but one which requires patience and many failures to apply successfully.
The other star is the weather. Whether its the snow fields or the incoming squalls blowing up the glen, they provide an animation of the image. Yes there are a few sunsets and sunrises too., but rather than dramatize the sky, they colorise the landscape. In fact the sky rarely makes an appearance and if it does it is greyed out or undramatic. Instead it is the Scottish landscape that takes center stage.
The other thing you will see little of is any sign of human intervention in the landscape. If this was England the hills would of been criss-crossed with stone walls and dotted with sheep. However apart from a solitary shot of red deer, there is nothing man-made or animal, contributing to the idea of a British isolated wilderness. (Of course the irony here is that the landscape as we see it now is artificial, caused by man made intervention over a millennium by the de-forestation of the area). It was only when writing this review that I saw 2 small white cottages dwarfed by the hills surrounding Loch Maree
Many of the shots spread over two pages, creating the kind vistas you get if you climb these hills and after getting your breath back standing and breathing in the landscape.
None of the shots feel out of place, but feel carefully selected to say a narrative and express the authors love of this landscape.
Finally..
If you are a photographer, someone who enjoys landscapes, or just someone who savour's beautiful things, this book is well worth being on your bookshelf. It will a book that will reward you the more times you study it, bringing out new images each time you turn the pages.
The only downside is that it will instill in you a strong desire to head to the North West Scotland to try to to see the images in the flesh, so to speak.
The best thing I can say about this book is that I almost convinced me that getting to the North West of Scotland would be worth 10 hours driving and the facing Scottish weather once again....
No comments:
Post a Comment