February on the Isle of Harris
Part I - "Tumultuous"
This is part one of a four part series documenting my month long excursion to the Outer Hebrides, specifically the Isle of Harris, during the month of February, 2023.
Tumultuous
The idea of an extended stay on the Outer Hebrides formed early last summer. I’d run a workshop on the Isle of Lewis for Light & Land in February of the same year and it happened to be one of my favourite workshop experiences. Not only that, but Harris held a little piece of me as I’d exchanged vows with my beloved there in 2019. Time, in the wake of the pandemic, had taken on a different meaning and I pondered how it would feel to fully immerse myself into a place I loved for an extended period. The month of February was an obvious choice for me, as I’m a January baby and winter is in my bones. It’s also the time when I’m least likely to pick up freelance work and happened to be conveniently adjacent to my 40th birthday, an event the gravity of which was not lost on me.
Although photography was part of my agenda, it was not the only reason. In the three years since losing my dad, words and fragments had been bubbling up, demanding attention. In the hubbub of daily life it became increasingly difficult to find space for these emotions. I knew I wanted to write about him, and the sense of love he imbued in me for all things related to the natural world. In-between the moments of photography I would scribble down notes, paragraphs and poems, little snippets of memories, a eulogy of sorts. I hope, in time, to make sense of that raw material and give voice to the complicated, yet undeniably formative relationship I had with my father and how it has shaped me as an adult.
Here, though, I want to share the experience of that space, of the wild, oft barren landscape of Harris that gives way to expanses of white sands and turquoise seas. It is a paradox of sorts, two seemingly incompatible sides of the same coin. There’s a moment, driving down the winding road that leads away from Tarbert, through scattered plains of gneiss and igneous rock, that have the canny sense of being placed there purposefully, where the view gives way to the Luskentrye estuary that becomes two of the finest beaches that you’d ever hope to set eyes upon; Tràigh Rosamol and Tràigh Sheilebost. The first time I saw this, it took me by surprise and ignited my imagination. The water shimmered in many shades of grey and blue, a mirror for the sky. Flecks of light and colour enticing down me towards the shoreline like an oasis in the middle of a thankless desert.
I like to think of the journey to the Outer Hebrides as a sort of secular pilgrimage. From my base in Birmingham it takes roughly 12 hours by car to arrive at the ferry port and then several hours over the Minch. Once on the island, I drove through the winding roads from Stornoway down to my base in Leverburgh, right at the bottom of the island. As I passed from Lewis to Northern Harris, dark spectres of the Harris Hills rose up around me, barely perceptible through my headlights. Time and distance mean less in these spaces. A journey of half an hour feels completely tolerable and truncated in comparison to 30 minutes on the roads of the West Midlands. Once arrived, stepping out of my car, I breathed in the crisp, clear late winter air, felt the jabbing droplets of rain and felt utterly grateful to have made it.
The first week of weather can be summed up in one utterance; tumultuous. Expected for the month of February, and I came prepared. New wellies and waterproofs were put through their paces. Layer upon layer to keep out of cold of the wind attempting to cut through me. A battle was afoot between the waves and the wind, stirred up by storms. Clashing, rolling, relentless. The tide unceasing in it’s work, moving in and moving out. I was reminded of a poem by Mary Oliver, ‘I Go Down To The Shore’
“I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.”
On the first full day, I was barely able to get my camera out. The rain came in sideways making it impossible to keep the front element free of infractions. On days like this, it’s better and more creatively satisfying to rely on my phone. I fear that the camera sometimes has the capacity to remove me from the moment and I succumb to a sense of visual tourism. In these moments I pondering the words of Don Delillo in White Noise;
"They are taking pictures of taking pictures…”
The dog and I walked out to the ruin of a 15th century church. Wandering over the terrain I startled a group of Lapwings, the collective noun for which is, rather intriguingly, a ‘deceit’. This originates from the idea that Lapwings are rather good at fooling predators and often pretend their nests are in different places to keep the true location concealed and their chicks safe. Chaucer wrote of the Lapwing, ‘the false lapwing, full of trecherye.’ Yet, all that scheming has done them no good for I cannot recall the last time I saw their distinctive shape against the open sky, light catching on the iridescent colours of their plumage. Not minutes after the Lapwings, I heard the unmistakably haunting call of the curlew as two of them flew over me. It had been so long since I’d heard the cry of the curlew that my joy was audible and despite the rain, my spirits were lifted. Ted Hughes was also fond of this wonderful little wader, the population of which is my lifetime alone has been decimated.
‘Curlews in April hang their harps over the misty valleys. A wet-footed god of the horizons.
In the first week on this Island I found myself returning, time and again, to Scarista. A mere 5 minutes excursion from where I was staying, it’s a beach perhaps a little overlooked for not enjoying quite the same grandeur or lure of Luskentyre. Yet, Scarista became a firm favourite. As I wandered along the shoreline every day, usually with the dog in tow, I watched the Harris Hills reveal themselves as the shoreline curved towards Ceapabhail (or as it’s affectionately known in our family, ‘that bloody hill we cannot pronounce the name of’), that dominants the south side of the beach, balancing the hills to the north. The wind was fierce, sandblasting both me and the dog. She much preferred walking against it than into it, but kept herself occupied by getting into all sorts of mischief along the shoreline, devouring the washed up remnants of small fish and exploring the shifting dunes. Every now and again I’d find the corpse of a dead sea bird, washed up with catastrophic injuries. Many were unrecognisable, but occasionally enough would be preserved to reveal their identity, like the Manx Shearwater than was missing the whole of it’s midsection. There was an odd and uncomfortable beauty in the shapes they would take, often with wings outstretched mimicking religious iconography. Each time I felt compelled to take a phone photo. A reminder of how fragile and precarious life can be.
I become intertwined with the tide times, my days revolving arounds the moments between high and low tide and how they shaped the landscape. I’ve always insisted that Harris has more to offer when the weather is moody, harking back to a mantra of mine that I try to keep close to my heart, ‘embrace the gloom’. Still, there would be excitement at any hint of light, especially if it caught on the crashing waves. As a landscape photographer I can become too invested in the idea that good light only ever exists at either end of the day, but that’s just not true, especially with the winter sun arcing low across the sky. Some of my most memorable moments came in the middle of the day when all I would carry is one camera and a long lens, speculatively watching the shore. There’s a word for this — apricity — meaning ‘the warmth of the sun in winter’, deriving from the Latin, aprīcitās. That said, there is something magical about the time before dawn and after sunset when the whole world shifts to blue, cold, indifferent and civil, creeping into dawn or night.
Towards the end of the first week, the weather broke. Out of nowhere there was a day of sunshine, bright and garish, with all the promise of spring. On days like that, walking became my main concern. I drove out to the North Harris Eagle Observatory and wandered up the path to the hide, nestled in the middle of the glen. I’d never seen a Golden Eagle before, and they had long fascinated me since childhood. On that sunny, breezy day I caught my first glimpse of one, ducking and diving, dancing on the thermals. A long way off but the silhouette was unmistakable. Little did I know that wouldn’t be my last encounter, but more of that in the second instalment.
From the observatory, I drove on to Huishinish. Bright, fluffy cumulous clouds filled the blue sky, the bold sun casting long shadows as it slid down towards the horizon. I let the dog have a run around. Part Saluki, she’s built for the sand and whipped up and down the beach, pacing past me in happy, elongated circles, stopping occasionally to catch the wind in her ears and watch the tide gently return to land. The day, and the week, ended at Scarista. Low light catching on large swells, making faces in the surf. An unexpected end to a week of tumultuous weather. Looking back, this was one of my favourite weeks. The island was quiet, yet the sea was loud, fizzing and swirling. I barely saw the sun, but that removed the desperate call of expectation that can haunt me. There was little fear of missing out, and in that calm, that sense of something beginning, I was able to make images that seemed to have a coherent thread, a collective power. Representations of a moody, fierce, powerful reintroduction. Sandblasted, soaked yet satisfied, time lurched me forward into the next moment, whether I was ready or not.
Thanks so much for reading this instalment. I intend to post pt II next Sunday. If you’re new here, please consider subscribing. If you like any of the images and would like to purchase a print, let me know. If you enjoyed reading this, please consider sharing. It’s difficult to start something new, and it would mean the world. Hopefully I’ll see you again next week!
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First visit, and enjoyed your pictures and words.
Sad to hear you've been deprived of lapwings and curlews, and would urge you to visit beautiful Upper Teesdale in the North Pennines, where we find it hard to realise that they are increasingly uncommon elsewhere!
Lovely and lovely words. And I love this snippet:
And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do