Undiscovered Scotland

 

"The Outer Hebrides" by Colin Nutt is part of the Picturing Scotland series of collections of photography which between them cover many of the more scenically inspiring areas of Scotland with titles like Ross and Cromarty, Royal Deeside, Northern Argyll, and The Isle of Skye. The formula for each book is similar, with a brief introductory text leading you into the photographs themselves, each of which comes with a detailed caption telling you what you are looking at.

A book of photographs stands or falls on the quality of the photographs it contains. Those that make up "The Outer Hebrides" are excellent. We should express an interest, as one of the images used was taken by Undiscovered Scotland, though all but a handful are previously unpublished and taken by the author of the book, Colin Nutt. Almost as important is the amount of work that has obviously gone into selecting a set of images which give the reader a real feel for what the Outer Hebrides is actually like: a set of photographs which capture some of the most remote landscapes and distinctive communities in Scotland.

The introductory text is a useful introduction to the Outer Hebrides, and you then head straight into the pictures. These are presented in a rough geographical order that takes you on a journey from Lewis in the north though Harris, the Uists, Barra and Vatersay, and there is even an image of the now uninhabited and difficult to access southern island of Mingulay. We've been on similar journeys to the one the author made for this book, also with the objective of photographing the Outer Hebrides, and it is fascinating to compare and contrast the photographs which emerged as a result. Above all else, our own experiences of photographing the area qualify us to comment on the excellent job Colin Nutt has done in this very nice book.