High winds and poor
visibility are common during a day’s climbing or walking in
Scotland. This photo was shot on the same day as Ines’s ascent of
The Hurting and shows just how brutal conditions were.(Extreme Scotland)
‘Wild Light’. Scotland’s Mountain Landscape. Craig Aitchison.Vertebrate Publishing. 160 pages £25. Large Format, Hard Back.
‘Extreme Scotland’. A photographic journey through Scottish
Adventure Sports. Nadir Khan. Vertebrate Publishing. 184 pages £25.
Large Format. Hard Back.
‘Photography
is truth’ Jean-Luc Godard.
Maybe
Godard would wish to now surround his view of the standing of
photography with a less-Certainty, for digitalisation has changed as
to whether photography is an art form or a developed skill? But these
two books are an exemplar of both forms of today’s present image
recording, film and or digital, both succeeding without question in a
wish to faithfully record for us the spectator what they felt to be
their vision in one moment of time.
‘Wild
Light’.
This
is Craig Aitchison’s second book, his first ‘The Highlands: Land
and Light’ published in 2012 was successful, but it has taken him
seven years to prepare and execute his second, ‘Wild Light’. Such
a work of landscape photography to achieve a sumptuous coffee table
result requires careful planning, with hours, and days of waiting
with nights spent in lightweight tents anticipating the key time of
dawn light or an evening sunset.
Aitchison
despite still working in film is a modern, for his equipment would
more than impress previous generations of landscape photographers,
his main camera being a Hasselblad X Pan, which was developed by that
Swedish firm in co-operation with Fuji to produce the world’s first
35mm dual format camera. The concept behind the X Pan was to provide
medium format image quality with the convenience of 35mm film, for
which Aitchison uses the Fujichrome 50 Velvia.
An Teallach, Dundonnell :February 2016
The first light of dawn ignites the chiselled slopes of An Teallach on a perfect winter’s morning. After years of waiting for the right conditions, I finally achieved the image I had hoped for and realised a long-standing photographic ambition. (Wild Light)
The first light of dawn ignites the chiselled slopes of An Teallach on a perfect winter’s morning. After years of waiting for the right conditions, I finally achieved the image I had hoped for and realised a long-standing photographic ambition. (Wild Light)
Interchangeable lenses
are also a key to his success, but surprising to me he only carries
three, a 30mm, 45mm and a 90mm. Which somehow yield a wide angled,
scene grabbing result in the mind and hands of an operator like
Aitchison.
Using
film employs an authentic approach to Landscape photography, for it
enables the picture taker to capture the nuances of colour and light
in the mountains, extremely accurately something that is difficult to
replicate digitally. There are however problems with this approach
associated with perspective and distortion errors; and in Scotland’s
mountains, the ever fast changing light and moving objects, such as
clouds and day lighting! And in this day and age working with film
means high additional costs in processing and scanning; I guess that
might mean ensuring that making sure the technicalities of
composition and exposure must be executed correctly out in the hills,
for little can be achieved in the laboratory.
Interesting
to me is to compare Aitchison’s sumptuous colour results to those
of some landscape photographer’s of yesteryear known to me; Ben
Humble immediately comes to mind. Someone I was fortunate to get to
know in the early 1960’s. Two of his books ‘On Scottish Hills’
1946 and ‘The Cuillin of Skye’ 1952 were groundbreaking in their
era, as was Walter Poucher’s many publications also around the same
time, ‘The magic of Skye’ 1949 being a book to own at that date.
However I must confess that my own most precious mountain picture
book as a young teenager was the Swiss Andre Roch’s ‘On Rock and
Ice’. In more recent times concentrating on Scotland, Gordon
Stainforth’s beautiful opus, ‘Cuillin: Great Mountain Ridge of
Skye’ published in 1994 remains the outstanding work on that range
of mountains. Interesting that despite the far reach of Aitchison’s
book there are no pictures contained within of the Cuillin.
An Teallach,
Dundonnell: July 2017
Standing at the foot of An Teallach in the predawn light I knew from experience that the low-lying cloud above me was indicative of a potential cloud inversion surrounding the mountain. With the thought of what might lie above I pushed on hard, hoping to capture this rare phenomenon before it burnt off. In a little over ninety minutes I had reached the summit. I was in luck: above the cloud it was warm and windless, the silence – absolute. I immediately set up my camera to capture the stunning conditions; I made my exposure and only after that could I finally relax. I sat down to recover, taking it all in. Two hours later I was still there: it was almost impossible to leave, but as the sun gained height the sea of cloud gradually dissipated and I returned home sunburnt and happy. (Wild Light)
Standing at the foot of An Teallach in the predawn light I knew from experience that the low-lying cloud above me was indicative of a potential cloud inversion surrounding the mountain. With the thought of what might lie above I pushed on hard, hoping to capture this rare phenomenon before it burnt off. In a little over ninety minutes I had reached the summit. I was in luck: above the cloud it was warm and windless, the silence – absolute. I immediately set up my camera to capture the stunning conditions; I made my exposure and only after that could I finally relax. I sat down to recover, taking it all in. Two hours later I was still there: it was almost impossible to leave, but as the sun gained height the sea of cloud gradually dissipated and I returned home sunburnt and happy. (Wild Light)
There are
however ones of more remote and more difficult to reach mountains
such as Canisp and Suilven, An Teallach and Torridon. Based in
Glasgow, fretting over weather forecasts he must have clocked up
thousands of miles over the seven years of putting together the 156
photographs in his book.
The Lairig Ghru,
Cairngorms: December 2012
The Lairig Ghru is a high mountain pass that carves its way through the heart of the central Cairngorm plateau, one of the wildest areas in the country. This great gorge features some of Scotland’s most revered winter mountains and this image shows its western aspect. From left to right are the summits of The Devil’s Point, Cairn Toul and Braeriach. (Wild Light)
The Lairig Ghru is a high mountain pass that carves its way through the heart of the central Cairngorm plateau, one of the wildest areas in the country. This great gorge features some of Scotland’s most revered winter mountains and this image shows its western aspect. From left to right are the summits of The Devil’s Point, Cairn Toul and Braeriach. (Wild Light)
Aitchison
was the inaugural winner of the ‘Scottish Landscape Photographer of
the year’. His photographs are ones to savour and memorise over,
plate 134 Braeriach in winter is one such for me, a night spent in a
bivouac in February 1963 at the foot of a possible new route with
Eric Langmuir (now deceased), to almost die retreating next morning
in an ensuing blizzard. So Aitchison is in a long line of Scottish
mountain photographers, he may not be the last, but he will remain I
am sure one of the best! Everything about ‘Wild Light’ is
appealing, none more so than the huge panoramas of favourite hills,
for me the one of ‘The Cobbler’ (plate 124 shot in February 2017)
remains breathtaking. It must be a huge gamble by Vertebrate to
publish this book, and knowing a little of how much it must have cost
to put together, I do hope it is successful for it really does
justice to the finest mountain scenery we have in the UK.
Nadir
Khan has a most unusual background for an adventure photographer,
post a career as a hospital based oral surgeon, working on facial
trauma and reconstructive surgery, he now concentrates on his first
love, photography. A journey which started at Glasgow University when
his father, also a surgeon, gave him an old SLR Canon film camera,
which became a companion on his early mountaineering adventures in
Glencoe and on Ben Nevis recording his own and friends activities in
these mountain areas. From such outings he began to develop a major
interest in wilderness photography, studying the work of such as
Ansel Adams and Galen Rowell. The latter must have inspired many to
take up climbing photography for besides being one of the most
outstanding exponents of this type of image; he was himself one of
the leading pioneer climbers of his generation. His two seminal
works; ‘In the throne room of the Mountain gods’ 1977 and
‘Mountain Light’1986 would inspire any tyro as they seem to have
done so for Khan? I did meet Galen on occasion in the States, and his
death in a plane crash, returning from Alaska in August 2002 was a
shock to all of us who knew him.
Dramatic skies and
light on Sgùrr an Fheadain, the Cuillins, Isle of Skye. Climbers:
Matt Barrett and Scott Brooks.(Extreme Scotland)
It
is always interesting if you yourself have an interest in photography
to discover what equipment such an operator as Khan is using to craft
his images. He has long ago left behind his old film camera and is
now a digital user, mainly with Canon EOS lDC and a 5D Mark lll,
along with L-series lenses as well as for flash a Canon 580 exii and
Elinchrom Quadra. There is a short but interesting Foreword to
‘Extreme Scotland’ by Hamish MacInnes, explaining his long held
belief that a timeless book of mountain images holds sway with him,
over the moving picture. Stating ‘I must admit I am a large-format
buff , an admirer of Vittorio Sella and the Abraham brothers- such
subtle light and shadows’. Hamish does go on to also note how much
digital photography has changed the name of the game. I myself still
use film cameras, but I do understand the benefits of digital whilst
filming moving images.....a major one being I understand is exposure
speed. And of course you can also see what image/s you have captured
in an instant.
Extreme
Scotland is broken into four sections, by season. Winter first and
for me this is where the books greatest pictorial strength lies, then
Spring, Summer and Autumn. And in each season there are activities
which seem to complement, with trail running and rock climbing in
summer and kayaking in the Autumn.
‘Extreme
Scotland’ covers all the major adventure sports which Scotland
plays host to. Ice climbing, kayaking, ski-touring, trail running,
surfing, mountain-biking and rock climbing. But the book is about
more than just a recounting of some adrenaline junkies doing their
thing! There are some thoughtful articles and poems from such as Nick
Bullock, Tom Livingstone, Elana Bader, Mike Pescod, David Canning and
Stuart Campbell. A poem I enjoyed was ‘One Day’ by Elana Bader
and an article ‘Creme de Violette’ by Tom Livingstone repeating a
Nick Bullock/Tim Neill route on Beinn Eighe. I would have thought
that perhaps a longer scene setting historical revue might have been
included? Who for instance first ran the Scottish 4000’ers, or
kayaked the middle Etive, or climbed in the Scottish winter?
The
winter climbing photographs are frankly stunning, and some of the
climbers featured all have wonderful, memorable names..... Caspar
McKeever, Uisdean Hawthorn and Ines Papert. The pictures of her
repeating ‘The Hurting’ (Xl. 11) in Coire an t-Sneachda, pages
4-7 are I guess what modern, winter climbing at the front edge of
performance are all about. But I wonder, as to when did climbers,
start calling themselves ‘athletes?’ Although I was once a member
of the Manchester Athletic Club and similarly The Leeds A C and such
as Arthur Dolphin ran every year for Yorkshire in the Counties Cross
Country Championship, I never thought of him, Brown or Whillans as
‘athletes’. They were ‘climbers’ which was a superior
designation, yet in ‘Extreme Scotland’ the climbers are all
athletes just like the trail runners.
I
think ‘Extreme Scotland’ which highlights the use of all of
today’s innovations in adventure sports is nevertheless a worthy
successor to much that has gone before. A list of climbing
photographers is almost endless but Nadir Kan is using some of the
techniques pioneered by John Cleare for his now historical work, ‘Rock
Climbers in Action in Snowdonia’. I mention this because I was Joe
Brown’s second while John filmed him off an abseil rope, climbing
Vector. But earlier works also set the scene, C. Douglas Milner’s
‘Rock for Climbing’ with its sense of period (the 1940’s) and
its climbing sequences that were revolutionary in that era. A final
mention of climbing photographic development must rest with Ken
Wilson. His large format books, such as ‘Hard Rock’ 1974,
‘Classic Rock’ 1978, ‘Cold Climbs’ 1983 and ‘Extreme Rock’
1987 set a standard that it is hard to equal for capturing a climb, a
climber and a place.
To
be fair ‘Extreme Scotland’ could not be anywhere else in the
world, with its unique setting of Mountains, Lochs and Wilderness
Areas. Some regions are harder to capture the zeitgeist, and some
activities are more photogenic than others. And here climbing comes
into its own, although Callum Anderson kayaking the Middle Etive in a
double edged spread (pages 92 and 93) is pretty awesome.
Surfing in Thurso in
fine evening light.(Extreme Scotland)
So
all in all this has to be a ‘bible’ for future adventurous souls
to go forth, to ski tour, to trail run, surf, mountain bike, rock
climb, kayak and winter climb. Knowing much of the territory the
pictures cover, I would be surprised if anyone else could improve on
this work of Nadir Khan. So I congratulate him on an outstanding
book, and I do hope it proves to be a well thumbed, well read
success.
Dennis Gray:2018
Images-Vertebrate Publishing
