Sealladh An Iar/View of the West

Sealladh An Iar or View of the West

Landscape Photography of the Hebrides 

By

Dr Sam Jones LRPS

Whilst on holiday on the island of Mull during May I was pleased to be able to get to see this excellent exhibition in a wild and remote corner of Mull which complimented the wild nature of the images perfectly.

Dr Sam Jones is a professional landscape photographer who has lived on Mull since 1998.  She has had three solo exhibitions on Mull and has also exhibited at the National Theatre and Mall Galleries in London (2012 and 2014).  Her work also featured in the Royal Photographic Society's International Projected Image Exhibition in 2012 and was RNLI Photographer of the Year in 2011.

Sealladh An Iar is an exhibition of the landscape photography of the Hebrides including Mull, Lewis, Harris, Barra, North Uist, Skye and Staffa.  Many of her images are taken in stormy and dramatic conditions (I can testify that there is plenty of that on Mull).  Most of the work is dramatic black and white work, but there is a small selection of colour images.

To me the black and white work was the star of the show.  Many had stormy skies and I enjoyed the fabulous textures in some of these and the well caught crepuscular rays lighting up image 8 of Kinloch, Isle of Lewis.Image 10 was of Eaval, North Uist and I really liked the contrast of the huge white clouds against a jet black sky.  I also liked the use of long exposure on some of her images to give an ethereal quality to moving water.

I found these images truly inspirational and they motivated me to try to emmulate her style whilst I was on Mull myself.  I include some of my images below.