This essay looks at the motivations of M.E.M. Donaldson, Jenny Gilbertson and Margaret Fay Shaw for making documentary film and photography, and how they represented the subject in front of their camera. All three women lived for extended periods in the communities they were recording. Gilbertson moved to and lived on Shetland; Margaret Fay Shaw lived for six years with the sisters Peigi and Màiri MacRae in their croft at North Glendale, South Uist; and M.E.M. Donaldson built her own house in Ardnamurchan. Through comparison of their work and processes to their better known male contemporaries, such as John Grierson and Werner Kissling, who were also documenting Scottish rural communities, the essay frames their work in a wider national and international context of the documentary photography and film making of the inter-war years. The essay draws upon key archival sources at Canna House National Trust for Scotland, Shetland Museum & Archive, Inverness Museum & Gallery and National Library of Scotland.

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