In 1954 American (but Paris based) photographer Paul Strand visited South Uist. Styled as an art modernist photographer, Strand sought to mix documentary with a creative aesthetic quality in his images, often using mixed media forms to display or influence his work. His journeys in Uist were undertaken - as I understand it from those who met him - using a horse-drawn caravan in which he prepared the wet and dry photographic plates used to capture his images. Some images took days to capture,...
more »In 1954 American (but Paris based) photographer Paul Strand visited South Uist. Styled as an art modernist photographer, Strand sought to mix documentary with a creative aesthetic quality in his images, often using mixed media forms to display or influence his work. His journeys in Uist were undertaken - as I understand it from those who met him - using a horse-drawn caravan in which he prepared the wet and dry photographic plates used to capture his images. Some images took days to capture, not in exposure, but in waiting for light or texture or perhaps just the right "feeling" on the subject in front of him. I have been aware of the resulting book - Tir a'Mhurain: Outer Hebrides - for many years. My parents, Allan and Mary, come from Uist (as do I) and were "courting" in 1954 so Strand's images are exactly what they saw and of people they met every day in the year before their marriage.
I used to wonder about Strand - the motivation to carry large format 19th century black and white kit around when other (easier) options were available - why he took a particular picture, or picked a specific spot to make an image - so I went to look, hoping to see what he saw or help me learn something of his vision. I decided that I would use 21st century equipment, in colour, a century away from that employed by Strand and, far from taking days to formulate an image, I would take 10 minutes. I did not want just to copy his work, but I did want to meet some of his subjects and stand where he stood ... again to wonder, why?
I was fortunate to meet a few of the Uibhistachs that Paul Strand photographed, or had met. I did not want to copy his pictures, but I did want to photograph those willing to give me 10 minutes of their time ... perhaps as an update of where they are now.
In the end I called my images Lorg Strand - literally the Footsteps of Strand in Gaelic, but a word with a greater meaning than just footsteps, perhaps to follow, to learn from ...
« less
