Warm wishes to Scotland’s new Makar (National Poet) Kathleen Jamie. A brilliant and timely appointment.
“Kathleen is a highly accomplished poet who is known for her works in English and Scots, and the meaningful connections her writing draws between our lives and the landscape around us.”
Nicola Sturgeon, Scottish Poetry Library, August 18th 2021.
Twenty nine years ago, just fresh from graduating, I was commissioned by the Scottish National Portrait Gallery to photograph Kathleen at home in Fife, and later to write a piece to go alongside the portrait in ‘Light From The Darkroom’ at the Royal Scottish Academy. The full piece is re-printed below. It was a treat to photograph Kathleen, over the years since I have grown addicted to her beautiful poetry and exquisite prose.
Kathleen Jamie :: 1992
I
was nervous of meeting Kathleen Jamie, doubly so as our first scheduled
meeting fell through. I got half way to Fife before I turned back as
there was still no answer to my phone calls. She phoned later that day
to apologise - dinner with friends the night before had spilled over too
far into today. Could we arrange another day ?
Perhaps this is why she was so generous with her time when we did meet -
I spent the best part of a day with her, thankfully as it was only
right at the end of the day that I got my picture. When we met, there was a quiet strength and intensity about her that I
knew it would difficult to convey in a portrait. I also felt her
wariness of me.
She took me on one of her regular walks, me tagging along burdened with
camera bags as she politely answered my questions. She walked every day
and I guessed she was slowing her pace for me as I frantically searched
for the right place for our picture.
Can we try a picture under this tree ... on this bridge ... in the park
... I hoped she couldn't sense the inner turmoil as I struggled to
capture something of her on film. I had searched for clues in her work,
clipped rhetoric where every line sang with a richness and love of
language, but had decided I must go with what I felt when I met her. Now
here I was, and I was toiling. I began to worry that she might sense
this.
She wondered aloud about photographers creating images of 'fey poets ...
staring into the middle distance'. I felt warned off. Time for a break.
After lunch, a roll from the corner shop, lacking any further
inspiration, I showed her some of my pictures. I don't know if this
changed something, but somehow I felt she let down her guard a bit. She
showed me round her home, a Fife High Street house with tiny rooms. Her
partner Phil was busy doing some serious renovations, and though the
sitting room was furnished, I didn't see any writing desk. She had been
evasive when I'd asked earlier where she wrote, but now it seemed that
she felt she could trust me enough to let me into her secret. She
lowered a trap door and a ladder slipped down. I followed her up to find
a tiny space crammed with outdoor walking gear. Half hidden was a tiny
door to her room beyond.
Kathleen explained that the room was empty as she had just packed for a
University post in Canada, and I tried to sound casual as I asked if she
minded if I went back down for my camera bag. I left all the lighting
and medium format gear I had carefully packed and hurried back up the
stairs, my heart racing that perhaps I had it this time. I was just in
time to catch the intense sheen from the shaft of light creeping through
the window of her attic hideaway. The room was so tiny I had to use a
wider lens than I would have liked, but I couldn't have hoped for more
in the final picture.
The clues are all in there, the typewriter, the
dictionary, the postcard from her travels, but it is the inner strength of her
pose, the searching self containment of her expression, the grace of
those hands and the unearthly quality of light that make this one of the
favourite pictures I've ever taken.
For me the picture of Kathleen will always be about the processes of
inspiration and creation, and the memories it holds of that whole day
struggling to get a picture that only came once I stopped looking so
hard.
