PICTURES: Ross-shire icon in the frame as fascinated photographer focuses on landscapes close to home
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IF any silver lining can be drawn from the past few months, one might be the renewed ability to find wonder and beauty in details we were more likely to overlook under “normal” circumstances.
On the artistic front, this has arguably seen more people making a deliberate effort to get creative as a way of fighting back against the mental weight of lockdown.
Developing new ways of making and sharing art has also, for many, created the conditions for finding new inspirations.
One artist who found a spark for a new project during the darkest days of the coronavirus crisis was Inverness-based photographer Andrew Dawson.
From the window of his study in the city’s Westhill, the 65-year-old has turned the changing landscapes of Ben Wyvis into a series of stirring photographs.
Under the collective title A Study of Ben Wyvis from My Study, his images have now been collected in a calendar, offering good wishes for the year to come.
“A year ago I took a really good picture of Ben Wyvis from my study,” Mr Dawson said.
“When lockdown started, I went back to it and concentrated on getting images of the Munro at different times and in different weather conditions.
“You can see Ben Wyvis pretty well wherever you are in Inverness and people from the area really identify with it, so that’s why I thought I’d put these landscapes together in a calendar.
“I could take pictures of it until my dying day, and I still wouldn’t have actually taken a definitive picture of it.
“But that’s OK – it just draws attention to the beauty of the world.”
A Newcastle-born professional photographer, Mr Dawson has a special fondness for the Highland capital, where he spent his youth as a student at Inverness Royal Academy student back when it was located in The Kingsmill Building in Crown, home to Wasps Inverness Creative Academy.
After experiencing life in London and Germany, and a career as a commercial photographer among other things, he was finally drawn back to the Highlands, returning to the city three years ago where he continues to create images for advertising and marketing campaigns.
Citroen, Ford, Gillette, IBM and Hewlett Packard are just some of the household names his services have been called upon, while he has also worked for a range of central government agencies and local government departments.
“Inverness is just wonderful,” he said.
“I still have many friends here from when I was at school.
“Even though many things have changed, it still feels like the same town and it was easy and natural for me to move here.
“It’s just superb, it really is.”
With the Ben Wyvis calendar now out there, Mr Dawson is also working on other projects, similarly based around the landscapes of Inverness and the wider Highlands.
“Photography has always been my passion and the way I respond to everything I see,” he said.
“One of my main interests is black and white photography and, in a project I am currently working on, I am finding places where the ancients or even modern people might make a votive offering.
“For example, I’ve just done a shot at the Kessock Bridge where I put a photograph of a valuable object into the water, and have that in the foreground of the picture, as if someone had made an offering of something valuable to the river gods.
“The landscape is there but this is not traditional landscape photography.
“It’s more of a research into the ways of the ancient people.”
While the nature of his work often means working alone, Mr Dawson also understands the need for support and is a representative of the Inverness-based Lonely Arts Club, a social gathering for Highland artists.
As with so much else in life, its activities have shifted to Zoom over lockdown.
“There are many artists throughout the Highlands trying to make art on their kitchen table, and then they have to clear it up at the end of the day,” he said. “All artists are working under some kind of constraints, but actually, that’s what helps in the artistic process.”
More information on Mr Dawson’s work and on the Ben Wyvis calendar is available at andydawsonphotography.co.uk.
