100 weeks: Anstruther | Govan |Dundee

Sometimes it is good to have a theme when taking photographs. Most weeks I have some firm, or occasionally vague, idea of the subjects I want to photograph. This week, however, there was no theme. I wanted to just see what photographs I could get in the course of a normal week. Although now I think of it, that is in itself a theme also.

Picture: Alan McCreadie

I try as best as I can to have my camera with me most of the time (I still can’t seem to think of my phone as a camera although it’s getting close) but I find myself without it far too often. This week I absolutely made myself carry it wherever I was. The result was a few hundred images, of which 99.9% I will never look at again. It’s worth it for the ones that work though – most of the time I know instantly as soon as I have taken the shot if it’s a keeper or not.

I was out and about quite a lot this week and the results are images from Fife, Perthshire, Glasgow, Tayside and Stirling.

On the way home from a job near St Andrews I stopped off in Anstruther, where for the first time in living memory I avoided buying fish and chips from the award-winning Anstruther Fish Bar. The weather had been miserable all day, but suddenly in the space of a few minutes everything cleared and suddenly the late afternoon light blossomed. A walk to the harbour lighthouse resulted in the first image this week.

Tinto Park, Govan, the home of Benburb FC

Next, Govan, for so long the shipbuilding powerhouse of Europe. The shipyards may be long gone but the character and iron-charm of the area remain. Football, of course, is vitally important here and times have been hard with the demise and subsequent rebirth of Rangers. I found myself on a splendid, yet condemned, old terrace watching football at a level below the senior leagues. Blood and thunder and utterly watchable. The image, of the supporter alone in the old, soon to be demolished, stand is my favourite of the week.

I was back up in Dundee on Easter Monday and although I was only there a few weeks previously I just find the place so easy to photograph that I came away with several more images which I was pleased with. The busker, Alan, spoke of how Dundee in the 80s and 90s was a dark and hard place and of how now it is exploding into life once more. The old exists side by side with the new and it is a fascinating place to visit.

To finish, a couple of images that I just really like. Firstly a shot of an old articulated lorry trailer somewhere near Bannockburn in Stirlingshire. As usual I was lost and driving round in circles and had driven past the patch of waste ground several times before I thought it would be something to shoot. Similarly, in Aberfeldy, I sat in a café, staring out of the windows at the propped-up chairs for some time before realising what a nice shot it could be.

In some ways having no real theme allows you to bit a bit freer with what you shoot, although it can be harder as everything becomes a bit more vague with regard to what to photograph. Structure is good, freedom is good but when all is said and done a photo you like is really all that matters.

• Alan McCredie began the ‘100 weeks of Scotland’ website in October last year, and it will conclude in Autumn 2014. McCredie’s goal is to chronicle two years of Scottish life in the run-up to the independence referendum.

Alan says ‘one hundred weeks...’ is intended to show all sides of the country over the next two years. On the site, he says: “Whatever the result of the vote Scotland will be a different country afterward. These images will show a snapshot of the country in the run up to the referendum.

“The photos will be of all aspects of Scottish culture - politics, art, social issues, sport and anything else that catches the eye.”

Follow the project at www.100weeksofscotland.com. You can also follow Alan on Twitter @alanmccredie.