ISLAND HARVEST

A COLLECTION OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY ORKNEY FARMERS

During the Art & Agriculture residency I gave cameras to some of the farmers I met. These were disposable cameras (although they can be re-used) and they were loaded with black & white Ilford HP5 film. Processing the films in my darkroom I was excited by the intimate and beautiful images that the farmers had made, Brenda Fraser even managed to document a calf being born. Over time 2o cameras came back and I selected 4 images from each one and hand-printed them. The photographs are not cropped, the framing is the farmers’ own. The work was exhibited at Orkney Museum, and in a permanent display at the Auction Mart, and became the book ‘Island Harvest’.

All images belong to the individual photographers

liamsheena3 Sheena Muir

‘ The following collection of photographs taken by the farmers themselves not only documents a typical working year in the lives of a cross section of Orkney farmers but also displays the deep admiration that those individuals have for their immediate surroundings. Whether capturing a particularly handsome ram, a regularly gazed-on horizon or a well loved tractor the work in this book warmly records subjects that are more often than not over-looked.’taken from the introduction to the book ‘Island Harvest’ by Neil Firth, Director of the Pier Arts Centre & Rob Crichton of Orkney Auction Mart. The book is available from the Mart, the Pier Arts Centre and Stromness Books and Prints priced at £4.50

Alan Scott