The Island of Bute, to me, seemed to drift at its own unhurried pace: peaceful, a little shabby and weathered at the edges, with the feeling of a place half-remembered from another time. The island’s friendly, respectful and warm community felt quietly self-contained, shaped by the shelter of living between sea and shore. Leaden skies lingered for most of our stay, often calm and mist-laden, while now and then a shaft of sunlight broke through to brush the distant hills. Above the soft, rounded hills, great puffs of cloud hung like a barrage balloon, scarcely seeming to move, as if they had settled there for good. At other times brisk and blustery winds ruffled the water and dark, ominous clouds brought rain, all the whilst our home in the South was encompassed in heat. The land, enjoying a high rainfall, was richly green and fertile, the cows and calves scattered through the fields looking full of life and promise, while the Clyde estuary moved gently at the edges, lapping sand and pebble beaches strewn with the warm glow of orange seaweed. It was, perhaps, something of a food desert for a healthy-eating fanatic, though we did at least enjoy some delicious Eggs Benedict.
A relaxing and restorative slow paced few days enjoyed away from screens, a fresh landscape and an ideal chance to capture different images. Not so much a chance ‘to stand and stare’, or simply to be present within the scene, but rather a persistent urge to capture—to record fresh vistas, varied impressions, and fix new memories in my mind.
On our return home we were hit by a wall of heat as we exited Euston railway station, and shed our sweatshirts for the first time in a week, and we were once again enveloped in sunshine and intense warmth as the South welcomed us back.
I created and bound a book of the images I took whilst on the Island of Bute.
This was an exercise in creating a Drumleaf book using my own images printed to create the pages. These pages are then stuck together to create a text block which is then bound to create a lay flat book which beautifully displays the pairs of photographs.
The subject shown in this book entitled 'Bute Reflective and Reflections' were images taken with my Sony camera and Samsung and iPhone, mostly double exposures taken in camera and adjusted in processing. All reflections of some sort; of the sea, the harbour and pools in the Fernery on Bute.
