D.O. Hill’s daughter Chattie is best known from the iconic portrait taken near the start of her father’s partnership with Robert Adamson, but we have very few further calotype images of her (calotyping was too expensive for regular ‘family shapshots’) . All we know from the playful letters, notes and sketches her father made for … Continue reading ‘Poor Chattie’ comes to Novel Nights
The white chocolate shortbread may be gone, but this week has been a good one for feeding my early photography obsession. First of all Rob Douglas, the contemporary calotyper who I met in St Andrews, sent me prints of his own calotypes. I apologise for giving you a poor digital version of Burnside Farm and … Continue reading More Photographic Treats
Going to the first ever St Andrews Photography Festival was such a thrill, only part of which was having my first ever one woman show. I’m happy to say the show was everything I wanted it to be with an attentive and appreciative audience. But in a way the real thrill was discovering I wasn’t the only one … Continue reading To healthy obsessions
Every now and then we go back to St Andrews and always find things have changed. I already knew my old hall of residence had become luxury apartments (!) but it was somehow even more of a culture shock to find Fatface , Costa and Waterstones rubbing shoulders with more – um, traditional establishments. But each … Continue reading St Andrews in a New Light: the Adamson family
Next week my guest here will be Debbie Young whom I met after she had read Kettle of Fish while on holiday (appropriately) in Scotland. As we chatted in the excellent Hamptons of Chipping Sodbury (we know how to live!) she told me about her visit to the Scottish Fisheries Museum in Anstruther which gets … Continue reading The Fishwives’ Tales
Ali Bacon / Books and Other Things 