Return to Mingulay

This work is a response to the work of Robert Moyes Adam, Scottish photographer (1885-1967)

Posthumously described as ‘Scotlands greatest landscape photographer’, Adam photographed extensively all around the country but evidently had a soft spot for the Isle of Mingulay - he made two trips there - in 1905 and then again in 1922. I first discovered this work at the St. Andrews University Special Collections where they hold Adam’s original glass plate negatives and hand written ledgers.

Mingulay was evacuated of people in 1912 a few years after a freak storm had taken the fishing boat of neighbouring Pabbay with the loss of the lives of all the young men on the island. The Mingulay boat survived that storm, but the community was rocked and in 1912 they were evacuated to nearby Vatersay and Barra.

In 2021, after one aborted attempt to land on the island (there is no harbour so you need to leap from the boat onto rocks - not easy with a large format camera, tripod, film, tent, food etc.), I slept under canvas for the few hours of darkness each night and made photographs each day of the landscape and remains of the village that once stood there.

A special portfolio was made for St. Andrews University collection consisting of ten 20”x24” platinum/palladium prints, four 20”x24” collage pigment prints and ten silver gelatin prints, plus a full set of contact sheets and notes. Below is a representation of that work plus some of the other photographs I made on the island.

Return to Mingulay, as we can see, is a little different to other projects - I do love songs and protest songs!

For print sales enquiries please email: craig@craigeaston.com

24”x20” platinum/palladium prints, editions of 10 with 2AP

Haar rising at Biulacraig, west coast of Mingulay, 2021: polyptych of five prints: 54”x44” and 30”x24” pigment prints

24”x20” collage pigment prints

Silver gelatin and pigment prints

Publication & Exhibitions

Return to Mingulay, curated by Laura Brown showing the work of Craig Easton (2021), Robert Moyes Adam (1905/1922) and Margaret Fay Shaw (1930s). Wardlaw Museum St. Andrews October 8th 2023 - Jan 7th 2024.

Behind the scenes - including the first failed attempt to land…