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Island Stones
No visit to the Outer Hebrides would be complete without a visit to the stone circle at Calanais. Sitting astride a dominating ridge, it offers a commanding view of landscape in every direction. JIM SOUPER ARPS
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he tones and textures of the stones and how different they look in varying light conditions, make them a great subject for photography. They are, however, only the tip of the iceberg; Calanais sits at the heart of what has been described as ‘one of the largest ritual landscapes in Britain’. My own exploration of the archaeology and heritage of the Outer Hebrides began on North Uist, where I took part in an Art and Archaeology Summer School run by the University of the Highlands and Islands. Inspired by the summer school and with the help guidebooks produced by the Hebrides Archaeological Interpretation programme, I chose to navigate the rest of my time on the islands by their archaeology. Most of the images I made on this first visit were of the more imposing standing stones and stone
circles. My compositions were, for the most part, made to emphasize the stones and to exclude more recent construction. During my two subsequent visits to the Outer Hebrides I have approached things differently. This was prompted in part by feedback from a 2017 exhibition, where two images in particular were remarked upon as being the more interesting and compelling. These were images of the standing stone at Breibhig (on Barra), which included a relatively recent stone hut, and another of the Iron Age remains at Cleitreabhal Deas with modern communication masts in the background. Throughout the islands ancient Neolithic, Iron Age and Bronze Age remains lie beside the marks left on the landscape by later inhabitants of the islands. These layers of history have become my main focus.
Breibhig Standing Stone, Barra, August 2016. I spent a great deal of time framing an image of this stone looking out to sea. This composition was something of an afterthought, but subsequently proved one of the more successful images when exhibited the following year.
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