Last year it was a real privilege working with Sciaf on their Wee Box appeal for 2024. 

Visiting Rwanda, I photographed Sciaf partners and participants around the Kigali province of the country, and around the Cyangugu district in the far South West – documenting the work they are doing to rebuild people’s lives and build peaceful communities for all, and combatting the threat of personal violence.

An artist who went to art school in her late forties becomes the winner of Scotland’s biggest prize for an emerging artist – the Glenfiddich Artist in Residence Prize.

Charlene Scott, 52, of Tranent in East Lothian won the £15,000 award for her work using endlessly folded paper and home-made botanical pigments.  

She will spend three months this summer at the distillery in Dufftown, Morayshire, alongside artists from all over the world.

The prize is supported by distillery owners William Grant & Sons, and is awarded annually at the RSA New Contemporaries exhibition in Edinburgh.

www.royalscottishacademy.org

This year’s prestigious Wigtown Book Festival goes online, like so many festivals in this covid compliant year. 

And to avoid the full feeling of “digital disconnect” and to give a stronger feeling of attending a book event, fans were offered the chance to buy special edition bottles of second bookshop “real air” and listen to “slow-audio” recordings taken from around the festival town.

www.wigtownbookfestival.com

Open art studios festival Spring Fling threw open its’ virtual doors in a delayed launch this Autumn.

The festival, which usually welcomes visitors to artists workplaces across Dumfries & Galloway on Spring bank holiday weekend, unveiled a wide variety of visual art online this October. 

Ceramicist Sophie Jarznya and her step father Michael Batey (above) at Sophie’s studio near Claygate, which offered socially distanced ‘real’ visits, as Sophie’s pottery has large opening barn doors.

Established painter Michael Batey in his studio near Claygate, Canonbie (above).

Sue Thomas (above), film-maker and collage maker, whose flower seeds studies under the microscope highlight climate change patterns.

Fine art photographer Alistair Hamilton (above), pictured photographing a picturesque wrecked boat on the River Dee estuary near Kirkcudbright.

More information about the festival on: www.spring-fling.co.uk

“Skyboat”, a boat sculpture, is launched by artists Charlie Poulsen at arts and crafts centre Marchmont House. 

And at the same time a £1 million series of artists workshops is unveiled in the former stables block at the estate in the Scottish Borders.

The heart of the Skyboat sculpture is “Girl Hannah” (above), an 11 metres long wooden former fishing boat positioned on the estate, which is now suspended on a wooden frame more than four metres in the air. Over time the oak trees growing underneath will support the boat and the frame will be removed, leaving the vessel ‘stranded’ in mid-air. 

Artist Julia Alexandra Mee (above), pictured in her studio in the converted stables block. Julia is painting the series of murals in the Cupola Hall at Marchmont House.

The virtual curtain went up on Scottish Opera’s recorded “Opera Highlights”, which usually tours community centres and village halls across Scotland.

I was asked to photograph SO’s four brilliant Emerging Artists at a safe distance from each other and myself at a rehearsal in Greenock’s Beacon Arts Centre before filming began for the online show.

Singers keep a 3 metres absolute minimum distance from each other (more for arias and cadenzas) and keep mostly within their colour-coded boxes.

Unusually for most production photography I was allowed to photograph from the wings (with a facemask) to bunch up the singers for some of the closer shots.

A covid narrative interweaves into moments from La Traviata, Carmen, Gilbert & Sullivan and Mozart. And “socially distancing” hats ensure government restrictions are adhered to. 

More info on: https://www.scottishopera.org.uk/…/opera-highlights-autumn…/