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The Highland Clearances People of the Highlands Checking lobster-pots, Diabeg, Wester Ross |
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The Highland Clearances People of the Highlands Checking lobster-pots, Diabeg, Wester Ross |
THESE PHOTOGRAPHS
WERE TAKEN from the '70s to the
'90s as I worked up north on a variety of projects,
including a book on the Hebrides which was commissioned in 1985. This
never appeared, for a variety of reasons,
but many of the pictures I shot for it later did appear in my first
book - The Scottish Highlands & Islands, published
by Mainstream and written by Dorothy and Alasdair Dunnet. Many of
these photographs show people involved in
traditional Highland occupations, partly because this is where my
interest lies, but also because all these things are
on the wane - across the whole region there is a slow dying of the
old way of life. While some still existed, I wanted
to preserve a little of it, even if only in photographs. Today, there
is still fishing and farming, crofting and weaving,
but it's good that the people of the Highlands also benefit from the
coming of many new opportunities - in building,
construction and engineering, manufacturing, electronics, digital
technology and communications - almost the
whole range of modern industry. While we might mourn the passing of
the old ways, no-one could deny that just
making a living in the Highlands was always a desperately hard
business, and anything that benefits the people
of the region can only be a good thing.