Undiscovered Scotland

 

"The Isle of Skye" by Iain Kirk Campbell is a beautiful photographic evocation of one of the best known and most iconic parts of Scotland. The Isle of Skye is the largest and the most northerly of the Inner Hebrides. With a population of some 9,200 people, Skye measures some 50 miles from north to south and comprises a series of peninsulas radiating out in an irregular pattern from a mountainous core.

Iain Kirk Campbell's large landscape-format book captures Skye's many different moods very well indeed, though in terms of picture selection it tends to concentrate on the darker, more brooding and moody side of the island's character. The author says in his introduction that "the principal aim of the ICP Framebook is to capture the essence of Skye's natural beauty and rich history, the traces of which are woven into the contemporary landscape." In our view the author has succeeded. The book is divided into a series of sections, each of which looks at a different aspect of the island, from traces of early humans to the island's magnificent mountains, not forgetting clan history, the clearances, native flora, the Trotternish Peninsula, the legends of fairies that are prevalent on Skye, and more. Each section comes with a well written and informative introduction, accompanied by a number of photographs, ranging in size from part-page to (in many cases) full page, plus some superb panoramic shots that occupy two facing pages.

This is the second in the author's series of ICT Framebooks. Like its predecessor, which covered the Hebridean islands of Barra and Vatersay, the book is designed to allow readers to extract the full page photographs for framing, and to that end, no text appears on those pages, just a white border surrounding the high quality prints. The idea is a good one and the quality of many of the photographs is easily good enough to tempt readers to take a very close interest in the detail of the book's binding. For those who might shy away from the idea of destroying a book in the interests of home improvement, it is also possible to order prints from the author's website.