THE ISLE OF HARRIS

Our next speaker at the beginning of October was Lesley Grand Scrutton, who based her whole talk on a ten-day visit to the Isle of Harris.

Lesley’s subtitle for her talk was ‘A Photographer’s Paradise’, something her work demonstrated. She was something of a breath of fresh air. She had been through the traditional club and competition process, but now belongs to a club which has no competitions only an annual contest for ‘Worst Photo of the Year’, which she has won. She does not enter outside competitions and does not work as a judge. She believes her work is for her own pleasure and for the public when she prepares a body of work to exhibit.

Lesley likes to work on projects such as the trip to Harris. She cares about how the work is presented and wants the overall impact of her display to be aesthetically pleasing. If working with her local library in mind, she knows it will be shown on one long wall, so her mounts are chosen both to complement the prints and to fit the overall plan. Knowing the work would be shown without commentary, Lesley also showed her scene setting text and maps of the location which form part of the whole.

Lesley’s talk was illustrated only with her prints, all printed and mounted by herself, which enables her to cut the mount to fit what she wants. She keeps the large sections of board cut from the centre to mount smaller images, often surface mounting these.
True to her individual style, Lesley expressed her lack of interest in the technology, the settings and even the camera. She has a Canon 60D and her mobile phone. She doesn’t use filters or a tripod and does minimal processing. She declared herself indifferent to which camera she used, opting for what she had with her.

It was very helpful that Lesley circulated all of her prints as she spoke so that members could have a close up look at them. It is difficult, even with prints under lights on a stand, for everyone to see the smaller details of an A3 print.

Lesley started he career in the fashion industry and spoke of the importance of colour to her. She likes defined colours, if not always strong ones. The colours of the waves and the beaches on Harris are those found in the island’s famous tweed, as was particularly evident in her intentional camera movement (ICM) shots.

Unusually Lesley expressed a dislike of pin sharp landscapes. She prefers a little softness to reflect nature. She pointed out one of the unusual aspects of seaside photography there as the ability to capture the waves against the mountains beyond. Rainbows are a particular pleasure and we saw several from this trip.

As Lesley rightly supposed, we have seen other presentations from Harris, but to make her work stand out, she had made a point of seeking out local crafts people and taking their photos at work. It was good to hear about this side of island life.

Lesley avoids the privations most of our previous speakers on the Scottish Isles describe. She does not go out at the crack of dawn and she stays in in the rain. This allowed her to get some different shots of the views through the conservatory windows at her rented cottage, pleasantly smudged by rain pouring down the glass.

Towards the end of her talk, Lesley spoke about the papers she prints on. One of her favourites for special images is ‘titanium lustre’. This metallic effect is particularly good for architecture and texture, lending itself perfectly to her shots of the Callanish Stones.