I entered the week thinking that I would do an exhibition in addition to the Landings 2018 and then part way through began to doubt whether there was time and an adequate body of work to do it justice.  By the end of the week I had convinced myself to only do the online exhibition and to do planning about a physical exhibition.

Work I made during the week and a subsequent conversation with Gary during his office hours convinced me to reconsider again and pursue a local exhibition.  I believe I have enough work from aspects of my overall project to mount a small exhibition.  The focus will be more on the place and its inhabitants than on the larger repeat photography aspects of grander changes to the landscape, though I may include a few elements in a triptych or polytych.

I find my work evolving during this module.  My focus in past has largely been up and out looking at birds and the landscapes they inhabit.  I also have produced images with rich colours and postcard lighting.  Of late, I have rediscovered the intricacies and rich biodiversity of the world  beneath my feet and a technique in which to capture that world in a more complete way.

While I was shooting macro work I suddenly found myself in the middle of a flock of sheep being moved from one pasture to another on Coul Farm.  While it was very much a current event, in and around the dilapidated steading buildings, it evoked a feeling of the past with a single shepherd and his dog working this herd as has been done for hundreds of years.  It also struck me that if the golf course goes ahead, it will be a thing of the past on this particular plot of land.  When I was processing the images, it felt wrong to use my normal approach in colour and yet monochrome didn’t work either.  I found a point of desaturation that was not quite complete that created real impact to the photos.

I am confident that these and other images from my WIP will make a good exhibition that will appeal to the people here in Dornoch who will see it.