Not sure how to start this one.......This is not an objective record shot, but an attempt to at being true to the “emotional honesty” of the image as I saw it - to explain
I wanted to photograph this building and provide a comment about the passage of time, so I imagined a mono image, long exposure to blur the clouds and create movement. Mother Nature had different ideas though with only a grey sky punctuated by a weak sun! I took two exposures anyway and left it at that for a couple of weeks.
In the meantime I did a little research on the building. Built by Lord Tweedmouth after his purchase of the estate in 1854, Guisachan House was visited by many important people, including the Duke and Duchess of York (later to become George V and Queen Mary). The end came in 1939 when the house was purchased by the owner of nearby Hilton Lodge, Lady Islington, who was annoyed that Guisachan House was being used as a training centre, their activities included swimming in Hilton Loch. Anything that could be moved was sold off and the roof removed.
So armed with a little more information and coming back to the image, I felt I needed to give a sense of the building’s history – as if it were recalling old memories, evoking lost dreams. The house seems destined to live in a world of delusion, fantasy and reckless desperation, one that’s being slowly overtaken and devastated by reality.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.” – "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
I wanted to photograph this building and provide a comment about the passage of time, so I imagined a mono image, long exposure to blur the clouds and create movement. Mother Nature had different ideas though with only a grey sky punctuated by a weak sun! I took two exposures anyway and left it at that for a couple of weeks.
In the meantime I did a little research on the building. Built by Lord Tweedmouth after his purchase of the estate in 1854, Guisachan House was visited by many important people, including the Duke and Duchess of York (later to become George V and Queen Mary). The end came in 1939 when the house was purchased by the owner of nearby Hilton Lodge, Lady Islington, who was annoyed that Guisachan House was being used as a training centre, their activities included swimming in Hilton Loch. Anything that could be moved was sold off and the roof removed.
So armed with a little more information and coming back to the image, I felt I needed to give a sense of the building’s history – as if it were recalling old memories, evoking lost dreams. The house seems destined to live in a world of delusion, fantasy and reckless desperation, one that’s being slowly overtaken and devastated by reality.
"Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine et lux perpetua luceat eis.” – "Grant them eternal rest, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them.
Comment