WOSP

A city at once in mist, smog and sunlight, waters winding through snow and past ancient pine trees, twenty-two sheep in a fort in the ocean, these are the gifts of aerial vision to be found today in Edinburgh’s galleries. It is festival time and there are three significant photography exhibitions running concurrently.  Planes Trains and Automobiles  at the National Portrait Gallery,  In Focus  at City Art Centre and  The Days Never Seem the Same  at Stills. Each of these exhibitions features at least one aerial photograph of note:  Aerial View of Edinburgh  (circa. 1920) by Alfred G. Buckham,  Braided river and ancient pines, Glen Feshie, Cairngorms ,  (1988) by Patricia MacDonald and  Sheep Fort, Rusk Holm  (circa. 1978) by Gunnie Moberg. All three photographs can be easily found online, but in the space of an afternoon and within a short walking distance all three can be viewed first hand. This brief essay is an encourag...

In 1966 a young man stood by the Citizens’ Theatre with a hand held camera and began photographing the streets of old Gorbals and the people who lived there. The series of photographs made by Steven Berkoff “over a period of a week or two” was the latest attempt by a long line of photographers to document the “appalling decay” of the area. It was in fact a hopeful period of regeneration following the Housing Act (Scotland) of 1954 that required councils to undertake slum clearances. Everything Berkoff photographed lay within ten minutes walk of the Citizens.  In 1868 a young man stood by the Tolbooth Steeple with a large camera on a tripod and began photographing the streets and closes of old Glasgow and the people who lived there. The series of photographs made by Thomas Annan over the next three years was the world’s first serious attempt at social documentary photography. It was in fact a hopeful period of regeneration following the 1866 City of Glasgow Improvement ...

Twelve framed colour photographs strung out along the white walled reception and bar areas of SWG3 make Mads Holm’s brief but intense statement  About Common Ground . This exhibition pictures the power dynamics of western society today. People appear in most of the photographs but nobody looks directly into the camera lens. Holm’s subjects are presented relatively isolated in repose, or together in flocks. Figures of power are contrasted with the atomised and lonely. The simple provisions of life compete with the mundane spectacles that tame us.  In Control  is a photograph of two men in dark suits, standing conspiratorially with hands in pockets by a red stoplight. One wears a purple Paisley pattern tie. Are they corporate schemers? Are they political power brokers? “Mince” is the eye grabbing detail in  Intersection/ Action IV  a picture of a large puff of smoke at a crossing. What just went off? In  Foreigner  a woman stands alone in a dark...

A life ends when the body stops breathing. In the making of her project,  Breathless,  Jolanta Dolewska has photographed the internal organs of animals, their skins, and lumps of their body fat. In parallel she has photographed the scarred skin and faceless bodies of living people at the point of exhalation. The work builds a sophisticated metaphor for the vulnerability and powerlessness of humans reduced to biology. Stripped of political agency, without a voice, we are able to be (mis)treated like any other animal. In spite of all, there is lightness in the work. Where does a project of this complexity originate? In previous projects  Holding  and  Reservoir , Dolewska explores the contingency of photographic images, the architecture and power structures behind the judicial system and the functioning of gaze. Both of these investigations were partly inspired by family history. In a distant time and place, Dolewska’s grandfather was embroiled in a high ...

Strontian/Pb Lesley Punton’s  Below, the rocks plunged into darkness  meditates on time and light, the naming and physical experience of encountering mountains and the stories embodied by rocks one might hold in the hand. The work is varied in its forms: video, photography, drawing and painting, text and…. twenty-six fascinating rocks (and a bonus crystal).  Travelling around the gallery in a clockwise direction, the wall on the left holds photographic works referring to darkness and light but also a Platinum print proposing that: “Remoteness is a medium of clarification”. On the middle wall is an exquisite, selenium toned, silver gelatin print of Strontian made from a Polaroid negative. Strontian is a place, a chemical element, and a pivotal childhood memory for Punton that helped nurture her love of the physical stuff of the earth. In the bay of a large window there is a copy of the artist’s book  Upland Birds . At first this seems slightly incongruous b...

Stac an Armin and Boreray Alex Boyd endures a complex relationship with Romanticism. His past projects have poked tongue in cheek fun at lone figures in sublime Scottish landscapes whilst, on the other hand, pursuing a series of arduous alternative process chemical adventures in suitably remote locations in Scotland and Ireland. In his newly published book  St Kilda, The Silent Islands  Boyd finds middle ground where the inescapable natural beauty of the islands and the archetypal abandoned settlement at Village Bay on Hirta are balanced by a healthy injection of contemporary reality through inclusion of photographs of the long running and still active military presence on the islands. Village Bay from Ruabhal Not to kill the romance completely, we are told before we reach the photographs that many of them were made using a camera previously owned by renowned landscape photographer Fay Godwin. The connection is clear enough to see through the photographs thems...

All Things Pass into the Night  is a line from Q Lazzarus’s one wonderful hit,  Goodbye Horses . It is also the title of Dave Ferrie’s next photobook. The book tells of nine frenetic New York City days and nights of firing on all digital cylinders. Ten thousand exposures later, how does anybody make sense of it all? Before leaving for the big apple, inspired by old school monochrome greats William Klein, Daido Moriyama and Ed Van Der Elsken, Dave had a loose idea that he would make a small book of black and white photographs revealing contemporary New York City as seen through his twenty eight year old South Lanarkshire eyes. Success was not guaranteed, adventure was. He left Scotland with a compact digital camera, an Airbnb booking and the promise of some big nights out with an old pal working a city bar just below the radar of Trump’s less than welcoming immigration policies. In the city Dave encountered and photographed streets, people, high rise buildings, a Ca...