In Search of Brigadoon.

I went in search of Brigadoon last week. If you've no idea what I'm talking about this link might enlighten you. Where exactly I wandered I'm not revealing lest it spoil your own search for the mythic; going without expectation allows chance to prosper. It's something I heartily recommend you do if you get the chance. To be perfectly honest I went to places......

The Fish That Never Swam.

My mother was one of 15 children, born into a Lanarkshire mining family near Glasgow. Her dad was a miner, and several of her brothers and nephews went into the pit to toil beside......

NC500: The Long and Wounding Road.

The NC500 was 'launched' back in 2015, a tourism marketing strategy to 'sell' the concept of a 'Highland Route 66' taking visitors through some of the UK's most remote landscapes and arguably its most......

Love & Loss on a Northern Isle.

It started in the wee hours, a distant keening that came and went as the wind gusting in off the Atlantic hustled around our van. It was in the notquitedark, an hour or so......

On The Inside Looking In.

What's the value of a story? To the reader it might simply be 'entertaining'. To the teller however it might be priceless - particularly if its a carefully nurtured cultural tale, woven around local......

Money, guns, thoughts, prayers, money, news, thoughts..

Presented without comment. All screengrabs taken off twitter in the last hour.     ...

My Mate Travis.

"He's my mate, I mean what else can you do if not something for your mate? So I got him this so he can walk with me, and he loves the beach..."   ...

Women photograph. Everything..

Women photograph? Yes. Why? Why not. How? Easily. Eh? Because they're everywhere. And they're good. And if they don't photograph, we all lose out. So what have they been doing? This:   Take a......

The American Dream.

There's lots of images. Too many. Too many deaths. Too many injuries. This image by David Becker stopped me for many reasons. (one of a series of striking & thoughtful images here). It's not the......

Small Town Inertia.

Photography: Investment. Money. Influence. Power. Insight. Yes, all those things are here in an article in The Guardian entitled How Photography Became the Hottest New Investment Choice: ...

From Lesotho to Lewis: observations on Vintage Patronising Crap.

When I was in my early teens, around 1976, I took a wander through a few countries in Southern Africa. "You should visit Lesotho" someone suggested. "Great countryside and the Basotho people are really colourful......

Islamic Fun………...

It's fairly common these days for the word 'Islamic' to be followed by that second word ''Fun...' but continuing with the additional ...'damentalism' tacked on the end, usually on the front of a newspaper, and......

“I Have a Name” (…and now I have a face too).

  Every now and again you cross paths with a stranger, and from that collision of orbits something unexpected occurs. It happened to me some......

A finger, a trigger, a shoe. A death..

Image Burhan Ozbilici—AP   Grant Scott has a very thoughtful piece on his site The United Nations of Photography titled 'The Single......

Black bodies, moral choices & the editorial process..

You may (or may not) have seen the images in the New York Times this week of the intercepted migrant boat off the Libyan coast. If you did, like me, you may have been......

“Dear Dad”.

  On Father's Day amidst the celebrations that a few of you may be enjoying, take some time out to watch ...

“Who controls photography…..and how to liberate it”.

"I am uncomfortable watching an interrogation that is misguided if related to some elusive standard of photojournalism. The supposed ethos at Magnum was cooperative effort: from each according to his ability, to each......

Pretend I’m not here..

Above Loch Loyne © John MacPherson Last Saturday above Loch Loyne I sat in my van in the......

Well, into the night.

I have a few 'clootie' (cloth) wells near me. These are 'healing wells' and the tradition is to dip a piece of rag in the water and wipe the afflicted part of your body......

The absence of loss.

If you've read this blog on and off over the last year or so you'll perhaps recall my partner's brush with death. If you've not, I've written about it here, and......

Floating in a sea of stories.

Charlie Beckett used a metaphor in a recent (excellent) article that has become more commonly used of late "drowning in a sea of stories about our world". (Sometimes also seen......