"I have no difficulty in considering myself an amateur for I believe that the true definition of that word is applicable to the finest work in photography, which derives not from a concern for payment or assignment or gain, but from the simple love of its creation." Gus Wylie
Statement of Intent for Ruraltopia
In this assignment I will attempt to interpret Ruraltopia visually through a range of photographs which demonstrate careful planning, creative composition and technical competence. The task requires me to identify two different sets of subject matter, each with three images pertaining to a specific photographic genre.
I have selected indigenous people from our local crofting community and will portray them in documentary genre as they interact with their own individual working environment. Crofters have a specific culture of self-reliance and a strong connection with the land and sea and as I myself was a crofter's daughter, brought up in a local Skye crofting community, I have a natural affinity with this heritage. I also intend to depict this cultural connection by capturing the essence and character of individual crofters through the portraiture genre.
I have selected indigenous people from our local crofting community and will portray them in documentary genre as they interact with their own individual working environment. Crofters have a specific culture of self-reliance and a strong connection with the land and sea and as I myself was a crofter's daughter, brought up in a local Skye crofting community, I have a natural affinity with this heritage. I also intend to depict this cultural connection by capturing the essence and character of individual crofters through the portraiture genre.
Documentary Photographer Research: Gus Wylie
Gus Wylie
The above quote is from the book The Complete Photographer by Gus Wylie (1935-), published in 1989. Wylie was awarded The Observer Award for Documentary Photography in 1981. In the same year he won the Royal College Travelling Award for a series of photographs entitled Teds, Rockers and Bikers, taken as he travelled across America. Gus Wylie was born in Lowestoft in 1935 but had a connection with Scotland from an early age having been evacuated there during World War II. He was a fine art graduate who initially had no reputation as a photographer although he taught the subject going on to teach at The Royal College of Art and became a Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology (the home of Eastman Kodak) in New York. He also taught in Florence and latterly was in charge of the Masters course in fashion and photography at the University of Arts in London. In 2006 he was made an Honorary Fellow by the Royal Photographic Society.
In this context, however, my focus is on his publicly acclaimed monochrome photographic collections. The Hebrides (Collins) was Wylie's first ever published book in 1979 followed by Patterns of the Hebrides (Louisiana State University Press, 1982) with the Gaelic version of this book Cur is Dlùth (Mobil North Sea, 1982), winning Book of the Year for Gaelic Books in 1983. His further publications Hebridean Light (Birlinn 2003) and The Hebrideans (Birlinn 2005) are a testament to his strong connection and rapport with the people, place and landscape of the Hebrides. The Hebrideans spans a period of thirty years from 1974 - 2004 and contains 151 images, gaining him the reputation of "the best modern photographer of the Western Isles".
Wylie also formed a strong bond with Gaelic broadcaster and writer Finlay MacLeod, who accompanied him on some of his island trips and providing him with a vital link to the Gaelic speaking community.
In his introductory text for The Hebrideans Finlay MacLeod writes
"..... the images here are of individuals in their own place and in their own time. The photographer has come to them and they have come to meet him halfway - and on their own terms. This is who we are and this is what we wish to narrate."
In journalist Torquil Crichton's article "LAST GLIMPSE OF A DISAPPEARING WORLD" (Herald Scotland, December 2005)* he writes:-
"So it is that Gus Wylie's photographs - a body of work dating mainly from the 1970s and 1980s - defines our idea of what the Hebrides are like; or now that life is lived at broadband speed, what the islands were like".
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/12446509.LAST_GLIMPSE_OF_A_DISAPPEARING_WORLD_
Wylie visited the islands some twenty years after the American photographer Paul Strand (1890-1976) but Crichton maintains that Strand was not the primary influence on Wylie's work although they did meet on one occasion. Wylie himself admits his affinity to the work of Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) and other American realist painters referring to "the same curious melancholy in the landscape" in his photograph, Evening, Staffin, Isle of Skye.
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| "...The contrast between the loneliness and vastness of the landscape and the Japanese motorcycle suggests for me the vast hidden changes taking place here" .... Gus Wylie, 1981 |
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| Smiling child in the wind, Laxay, Isle of Lewis - Gus Wylie, 1981 |
It seems appropriate that in this era, the Gaelic band Runrig used some of Wylie's pics on their album covers, with their music addressing issues about politics, language, land ownership and crofting culture, such as this iconic image on their Heartland album cover.
Apart from the aforementioned images, I have selected the following as having an influence on my visual interpretaion of Ruraltopia in the documentary genre:-
1. My observations from what I have read is that Wylie's empathy with the landscape and his respect for the indigenous people are reflected in his photographs. The relationships he cultivated within the crofting communities as he travelled around in his orange VW camper van allowed him to capture the rapidly iconic images of moments in the past along with the modernisation of that era. The image below shows the television, the battery torch and the plastic floral plant display contrasting sharply with the old-fashioned dresser which was a feature of traditional croft houses. The traditional V-lining (tongue and groove) of the scullery ceiling can be seen and the V-lined ceiling of the living room is also reflected in the mirror, while the crofter's wife can be seen in a working environment containing modern cooker and wall units. This photograph really portrays to me the advent of change.
I have attempted to emulate this style in my crofter and creel capture, where a modern filing cabinet and a white fridge/freezer contrast with the creel and the traditional furnishings of the croft house interior.
Crofting in 2015 involves a lot of documentation completion so the cattle medication and the remains of the lunch snack on the table symbolise the snatched moments taken for form-filling. I think this is representative of Wylie's captures of the moment, e.g. the shopping on the sofa, the spoon in the cup of tea, etc which is prevalent in his pictures.
2. Gus Wylie's engagement with the community is again outlined by Crichton in his writing "Little details, cyphers and codes in the landscape let Wylie know he was accepted. Also, he took time - a commodity that economics has since stolen from photographers".
Crichton once again quotes Wylie from his interview - "then by serendipity, he admits, a picture would come - a man wearing three pullovers, the magical relationship between people and their animals, the Bible resting on a woman's knees."
Wyle has captured the resignation of the sheep in its eye while at the sheep shearing in the Quirang and I have tried to echo this in my own capture of this crofter working with his sheep at the fank.
Professor Andrew Blaiklie, University of Aberdeen in his paper Visions of Remoteness and Rurality: Implications of the Photographic Record (UHI March 2011) cites Wylie's documentary realism as influenced by the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975) who was known for his documenting of the effects of The Great Depression. Blaiklie writes of Wylie:
"His pictures, particularly his intimate interior shots, are of a specific time in the islands - the dawn of the Formica age...."
For myself, I am continually distracted during my research by the appeal of Wylie's powerful documentary images and the emotions evoked from them, which transport me to a familiar period in my own life with such clarity of recognition.
It makes me quote Wylie's own remark on his return to Stornoway in 2006 to host an exhibition of his photographic work ....
Apart from the aforementioned images, I have selected the following as having an influence on my visual interpretaion of Ruraltopia in the documentary genre:-
1. My observations from what I have read is that Wylie's empathy with the landscape and his respect for the indigenous people are reflected in his photographs. The relationships he cultivated within the crofting communities as he travelled around in his orange VW camper van allowed him to capture the rapidly iconic images of moments in the past along with the modernisation of that era. The image below shows the television, the battery torch and the plastic floral plant display contrasting sharply with the old-fashioned dresser which was a feature of traditional croft houses. The traditional V-lining (tongue and groove) of the scullery ceiling can be seen and the V-lined ceiling of the living room is also reflected in the mirror, while the crofter's wife can be seen in a working environment containing modern cooker and wall units. This photograph really portrays to me the advent of change.
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| Interior, Tote, Isle of Skye, 1974 - Gus Wylie |
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| Crofter and creel, Ardvasar, Isle of Skye 2015 |
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| Crofter and kitchen table, Tarskavaig, Isle of Skye, 2015 |
Crofting in 2015 involves a lot of documentation completion so the cattle medication and the remains of the lunch snack on the table symbolise the snatched moments taken for form-filling. I think this is representative of Wylie's captures of the moment, e.g. the shopping on the sofa, the spoon in the cup of tea, etc which is prevalent in his pictures.
2. Gus Wylie's engagement with the community is again outlined by Crichton in his writing "Little details, cyphers and codes in the landscape let Wylie know he was accepted. Also, he took time - a commodity that economics has since stolen from photographers".
Crichton once again quotes Wylie from his interview - "then by serendipity, he admits, a picture would come - a man wearing three pullovers, the magical relationship between people and their animals, the Bible resting on a woman's knees."
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| Shearing, the Quirang, Isle of Skye, 1981 - Gus Wylie |
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| At the Fank, Ord, Skye - 2015 |
Wyle has captured the resignation of the sheep in its eye while at the sheep shearing in the Quirang and I have tried to echo this in my own capture of this crofter working with his sheep at the fank.
Professor Andrew Blaiklie, University of Aberdeen in his paper Visions of Remoteness and Rurality: Implications of the Photographic Record (UHI March 2011) cites Wylie's documentary realism as influenced by the American photographer Walker Evans (1903-1975) who was known for his documenting of the effects of The Great Depression. Blaiklie writes of Wylie:
"His pictures, particularly his intimate interior shots, are of a specific time in the islands - the dawn of the Formica age...."
For myself, I am continually distracted during my research by the appeal of Wylie's powerful documentary images and the emotions evoked from them, which transport me to a familiar period in my own life with such clarity of recognition.
It makes me quote Wylie's own remark on his return to Stornoway in 2006 to host an exhibition of his photographic work ....
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