This paper was part of the panel 'A Porous Picture: The Influence of Gender and Relationships on Images of Scottish Island Life', at the 5th International St Magnus Conference 'Island Histories and Her-stories', a three-day conference organised by University of the Highlands and Islands. The panel was convened by Maya Darrell Hewins (Phd candidate, University of the Highlands and Islands). Shona Main (Phd candidate, University of Stirling / The Glasgow School of Art) was the third panel speaker. The panel took place on 14 April 2021.
My 20 minute paper, 'Making the Pictures: Women Behind the Camera', looked at six women photographers and filmmakers from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, documenting life and social change in the Scottish isles. The photographers and fillmakers were Violet Banks (1896-1985), M.E.M. Donaldson (1876-1958), Jenny Gilbertson (1902-1990), IF Grant (1887-1983), Isabell Burton MacKenzie (1872–1958) and Margaret Fay Shaw (1903-2004).
For the purposes of the paper, I made an index of the six women photographers, bringing together how they described themselves (eg. filmmaker, teacher); locations; motivation; methods; type of camera they used; and dissemination (e.g. films, lectures and film screenings'. This index allows for comparison.
The paper outlines their social backgrounds and independence from any system. It then goes on to draw comparisons between shared subject matter such as farming practices, rural industries and islander portraits. A key argument of this paper is the women's difference in approach to recording modernity as part of rural life; in comparison to other male peers who were portraying the same islands as romantic, primitive and remote. The paper concludes that through the work of these women photographers and filmmakers, we see a different narrative of a changing Scotland emerging.
