Inspiration Burns brightly

Published on Monday 22 December 2008 10:15

SO, which one of you is the boss?" It's exactly the kind of question you might expect from a man like Alastair Campbell, especially when confronted by two photographers – Tricia Malley and Ross Gillespie – who work in partnership, swapping places behind the camera as they seek the shot they want. So who is the boss?

"Who do you think?" laughs Malley, as Gillespie rolls his eyes.

"Ninety-five per cent of the time we don't know who took the shot," Gillespie adds.

The Edinburgh-based photographers, known collectively as broad daylight, have had two major portraiture exhibitions, including photographs of some of Scotland's leading business figures such as Sir Tom Hunter, Sir Arnold Clarke and Sir Jackie Stewart. They've now put together an exhibition called As Others See Us as part of Homecoming 2009. It's a collection of 20 portraits of some of Scotland's best-known faces – among them Eddi Reader, Peter Capaldi and Andrew O'Hagan – featured alongside a passage of Burns chosen by the sitter. The show opens in the Scottish Parliament next month.

In fact, the idea behind the project existed for Malley and Gillespie before the Homecoming 2009 extravaganza entered the picture. Malley and Gillespie wanted to ask a range of Scottish writers for their favourite passage or poem written by Robert Burns to build up a collection of photographs and texts that would bridge the gap between Scotland's national poet and its current pantheon of writers. The influence of Burns on Scottish literature is indisputable, but just as his broad political and social outlook has allowed him to be championed by both the Establishment and its detractors, the appeal of Burns to Scots is as diverse as it is deeply-held. When the idea of As Others See Us for Homecoming emerged, all that was left to do for Malley and Gillespie was to broaden the list of participants and to ask each of them to write a short piece explaining why they selected their chosen Burns passage or poem.

"It's been a bit of a white-knuckle ride," says Malley smiling, "but it's been great. We're really pleased with the results."

Malley and Gillespie have photographed the First Minister, Alex Salmond, comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli, and writer Denise Mina among others for the series of portraits, capturing not only images of Scotland's political and cultural heavyweights but showing them in strikingly original ways. The images are dramatic and unique, full of artifice, yet direct and arresting.

"We wanted the photographs to look set-up," says Malley. "We weren't aiming for something naturalistic. As photographers, we want to make sure that the image suits the sitter though, that it captures who they are."

Wrapped in a striking red plaid, standing in a grassy field with two sheep, celebrated writer Janice Galloway looks directly at the camera. There are the visual references to her chosen poem, Ca' the Yowes to the Knowes, but also, as with the other portraits in the exhibition, there's a formality in the photograph's composition. Galloway, like the rest of the sitters, hasn't seen the final image but she assures me that the shoot was fun. "It was freezing. I was really, really cold," she says. "And I had a lot of clothes underneath that blanket. Tricia made me a hot water bottle, which I sat on between shots."

Galloway isn't usually a fan of having her photograph taken ("I just hate it") but this time, charmed by Malley, she agreed to participate, believing that the process might be different. Happily it was.

Galloway comes from Ayrshire which makes her connection to Burns "particular". "I got dosed on Burns suppers and Burns poetry competitions from about the age of five," she says. "I used to sing at Burns suppers in Ayr, which is very much an enclave of the old school, men-only Burns suppers. I don't know how many Burns suppers I've been to where I was the only woman and I've been there as the entertainment, to sing. It has long been the way, I dare say."

Galloway acknowledges that some of Burns's songs are "cheesy" while some are obscene. His representation of women is, according to Galloway, erratic, but there's a stature to his work that guarantees his continuing appeal.

"For me, Burns is always on the level with the greatest of the great people," she says. "I've always linked him in my head to the great composers, people like Mozart. It was Schumann's father who introduced Burns to southern Germany. Haydn set some Burns songs, Schumann set some Burns songs and Goethe read Burns. Heinrich Heine kept a copy of Burns in his back pocket.

"I've always linked Burns with these people, therefore it's never been surprising to me that I would naturally have some lines of Burns up my sleeve. Of course I would."

The poem that Galloway selected is an idealised representation of the lives of shepherdesses, which were brutally hard, but it's a piece that she loves. And she is convinced of Burns's continuing relevance. "Could anything be more contemporary than poems about the balance between nature and what human beings do to the landscape?" she says. "To a Mouse is massively relevant."

Celebrating the 250th anniversary of Burns's birth is a reminder of just how pivotal he remains in Scotland's culture. Sentimentalised as the "heaven-taught ploughman", there remains a universality to his work and indeed, his life, that seems to encapsulate values to which Scots and Scotland are drawn. It's present from the great celebration of equality conveyed in A Man's a Man for a' That, to his prescient understanding of the tension between humankind's progress and our mistreatment of the natural environment in To a Mouse.

Malley and Gillespie were surprised by how easy it was for their sitters to choose the lines or verses that are most meaningful to them.

"We hadn't even heard of quite a few of the poems people chose," Gillespie says. "We were learning about Burns as we went along."

Homecoming has been described as everything from a misguided tourist-touting mission to an economic lifeline which may yet see Scotland through the current economic crisis. Put together by VisitScotland, EventScotland and the Scottish Government, the year-long programme of events is targeted at 100 million people who have some sort of "blood link" to Scotland as well as those with a fondness for the country. The tricky thing, which critics of the 6million venture have picked up on, is that what makes Scotland appealing to expatriates or those with Scottish ancestry is not necessarily the same as what appeals to Scots. Galloway reckons that Burns side-steps this problem with ease, as have Malley and Gillespie.

"What Ross and Tricia have asked is very clever – they've asked 'what is your personal response?'" she says. "How a country is marketed by a tourist board has got nothing to do with the cultural value of something and Ross and Tricia have gone for the cultural and personal value.

"One of the great thrills that we recognise in Burns as Scots is he refuses to be packaged in that (tourist-friendly] way. Yes, you see him on shortbread tins but that's not the man's fault. He is the ploughman poet and he has been romanticised in that way but that doesn't come from the man's words. When you read the words, that directness of voice, the direct drama of a man hundreds of years ago speaking to you as if he's right in front of you, I think it's unmistakable for people who still speak the remnants of that language naturally."

For Neil Gillon, the Ayrshire farmer photographed by Malley and Gillespie with his sheepdog, Spot, the language of Burns and the sentiments of his work couldn't be more relevant. As chairman of his local Burns Supper, The Jolly Beggars, Gillon knows his Burns, although he reckons that he's "not a strong Burns man".

"I picked To a Mouse because it's the usual one that you think of to do with the land," Gillon says. "Everybody knows it. Some of the lines in it – 'The best laid schemes o' mice an' men,/Gang aft agley' – could they be more apt for now although they were written 230 years ago? Or 'I'm truly sorry Man's dominion/ Has broken Nature's social union', Burns was talking about putting the wee mouse out of its home but it's apt for today in terms of how the human race is wasting nature. What Burns saw and wrote about at the time is just so meaningful now, perhaps even more so than it was then."

Gillon says that he's seen the countryside transformed, and not for the better, in the 30-odd years he's been working with sheep. There's a community spirit that's vanished, along with the worthies who'd be propping up the bar of the local pub.

"It's the same with sheepdog trials," he says. "If you took all the pensioners – all the people over, not even 60 but gey near 70 – out of the catalogue, you could write them on the palm of your hand. We've got one young lad of about 12 who's started but before him, the youngest handler was about 35. It's a shame." But then he catches himself. Gillon says his wife runs a caf in the local village, Dailly, that caters for a local holiday park. "The tourists say it's beautiful out here, the scenery's fantastic and there are no traffic jams. You walk along the street and everyone says good morning to you. They cannae believe it. We've got that here and I'm sitting complaining about it. We get Americans coming over and we used to think why would anyone want to come here, there's nothing to do. But then you listen to people who come and it's the fact that what we've got here isn't plastic, it's real. The people are real."

Gillon reckons that if Homecoming manages to spread the word about what Scotland's got to offer, it'll be worth it.

"Why not publicise ourselves? We have a great country and I think we have great people," he says. "Anywhere you go, people talk about how friendly the Scots are so we should make the most of it."

&#149 As Others See Us opens at the Scottish Parliament on 21 January until 14 February before heading off on a national tour, eventually coming back to Edinburgh again in August. A book of the photographs designed by the Leith Agency and published by Luath Press will be available to buy, priced 9.99, from 12 February but is available for pre-order from 21 January. To reserve a copy, visit www.luath.co.uk