The magazine of the photo-essay
May/June 2021 issue
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film maker
Creative Coverage represents selected professional artists and craftspeople and helps them with their
marketing. www.creativecoverage.co.uk
Memory and time, perception and reality, are constant themes and preoccupations in my work. Most of the following
images are set here in Kintyre, but the trio on the church steps was taken in 2016 in London. At the time the news was
full of Brexit and immigration and this tableau seemed to sum up where we were as a nation at the time. Abandoned is
a series of photographs taken at the former RAF base at Machrihanish. The wonderful juxtaposition of an old cold war
outpost and a herd of cows feeding epitomises the state of the base now. It was bought by the community in 2012 and
is now home to a wind tower manufacturer, a gym, various small businesses including a firewood supplier, joiners and
a shooting range. The old towers are still there, as are the bunkers where the nuclear weapons were stored. It’s still
got the longest runway in Britain, only half of which is used by Loganair to provide a lifeline route from Campbeltown to
Glasgow. The beauty of western Scotland and in particular Kintyre means that I’m never short of inspiration or material
and the unpredictable Scottish weather produces extraordinary light and atmospherics. People always make good
pictures, especially if they don’t know you’re taking their photograph. Feeding the ducks, petting a dog, or simply watching
the world go by - all little moments that are fleeting in time but captured for an eternity. Lastly the Lighthouse at
Anstruther - this image was highly commended in this years Monochrome Awards - but for me it is a memory of my
childhood summers spent with my Grandparents in the East Neuk of Fife.
