Every Image Begins with a Story.
Behind the Image: Between Shadows
The Connection
This image is deeply personal to me. I grew up beside the working docks of Leith, where industrial structures such as the Victoria Swing Bridge formed part of the everyday landscape.
Today, the bridge stands between two versions of the area: its working industrial past and the modern development rapidly changing the waterfront around it.
The Composition
I composed the photograph so that the heavy steelwork of the historic bridge frames the newer buildings at the end of the walkway.
The bridge remains in deep shadow, while the modern architecture beyond appears sharper and brighter. This contrast became a way of expressing the tension between Leith’s industrial heritage and the future taking shape around it.
The Story
A lone figure is caught mid-stride, moving out of the darkness and towards the light.
The photograph does not say whether something is being left behind or whether the figure is moving towards something better. That is left for the viewer to decide.
Behind the Image: Between Tides
The Connection
Photographed along the rugged, windswept coastline of Cramond Island, this image captures a landscape defined by transition. It is a liminal place—a threshold between solid land and open sea that continually appears, disappears and changes with the tide.
The Composition
The photograph emerged from a fleeting moment while I was scouting the coastline. It was captured using my trusted Fujifilm HS50EXR bridge camera, reminding me that atmosphere, timing and an honest eye matter far more than having the newest equipment.
The winding tidal channel leads the eye towards the solitary figure, while the expansive sky gives the landscape its sense of scale and isolation.
The Story
The solitary figure is a young person occupying an in-between stage of his own—no longer entirely a child, but not yet an adult.
Sitting quietly between land and sea, beneath a sky caught between calm and change, he becomes part of the liminal landscape around him. The photograph reflects that uncertain threshold between one stage of life and the next: a quiet moment before moving forward.
Behind the Image: Void & Aperture
The Connection
Most photographs of the V&A Dundee concentrate on its dramatic exterior. I was drawn instead to the space beneath it, where the building takes on a completely different character.
Standing there, the repeating concrete forms felt almost science-fictional—more like the interior of a vast vessel than part of a museum. That impression led to the title Void & Aperture, which also carries a quiet reference to the V&A itself.
The Composition
I composed the photograph so that the structure dominates the frame, closing in from above and from both sides. The repeating forms create rhythm and weight, while the curved walkway leads towards the bright opening.
The lone figure provides scale and a human presence within the much larger architecture. The deep shadow becomes the void, while the opening beyond becomes the aperture.
The Story
The figure is caught between the dark interior and the daylight beyond.
To me, the opening feels almost like a portal into another dimension. The photograph leaves us to decide whether the figure is moving towards it, turning away, or simply pausing at the edge.
Behind the Image: Before the Crow Flies
The Connection
I had settled into one position on the shoreline for over an hour, watching and waiting rather than chasing a photograph.
I was interested in how people, birds and animals moved through the same open landscape, hoping that some kind of relationship might develop between them. Eventually, this composition presented itself.
The Composition
The crow provides a strong foreground anchor, while the distant dog walker creates a second point of interest further into the landscape.
Their positions form a diagonal across the frame, connecting two otherwise separate moments. The bright water helps define the silhouettes, while the open sky and physical distance between them create a sense of quiet and space.
The Story
The walker and dogs are already moving across the shoreline, while the crow remains still, watching from the foreground.
The title holds the photograph at the moment just before something changes. The crow may remain where it is or take flight as they approach. What happens next is left for the viewer to decide.
Behind the Image: Under the Third Marker
The Connection
Along Edinburgh’s shoreline, numbered markers, weathered groynes and other functional structures often become part of the landscape without attracting much attention.
While photographing in and around Portobello, I was drawn to the third marker and the way it stood alone against the changing sky. It was an ordinary piece of the shoreline, but within the right conditions it took on a presence of its own.
The Composition
I used the line of the groyne to lead from the foreground towards the marker, allowing its narrow vertical form to divide the beach, sea and sky.
The two figures and dog were caught crossing the wet sand beyond it. Their small scale gives the marker greater presence, while the breaks in the heavy cloud cast soft shafts of light across the water and distant horizon.
The Story
The marker is fixed, designed to remain in place as the tide, weather and people move around it.
Beneath it, the figures share a fleeting moment before continuing across the beach and out of the frame. Under the Third Marker considers the contrast between what remains and what simply passes through.
