Gathering Light photography workshop

The weekend after the summer solstice, join our Upper Tweed artist in residence Sam Laughlin for a half-day photography workshop that celebrates the importance of slowed-down ways of engaging with the nonhuman world. With the days at their longest and lightest, Sam will lead a small group from the Borders Forest Trust cabin at Corehead through the surrounding habitat mosaic of woodland, wetland, orchards and species-rich grasslands.

In order to encourage slower and more considered ways of looking at the landscape’s overlapping ecologies, Sam will suggest a limit on the number of photographs each participant takes. At the end of the session we will return to the Corehead cabin and share our gleanings with each other. The resulting images will also contribute to a portrait of the area that will be included in an exhibition scheduled to coincide with the Moffat Walking Festival (27-29 September).

The workshop also includes an introduction to solargraphy. As part of his residency with Connecting Threads, Sam is placing a series of pin-hole cameras around the Wild Heart sites. These are remaining in place for three months, tracking the movement of the sun across the landscape through long exposure photographs. Sam Cornwell of Solarcan in Hawick will give an introduction to solargraphy.


Schedule
09.45 - 10.00: arrive at Corehead
10.00 – 10.15: introductions from Emily Cropton (Connecting Threads) and Sam Laughlin
10.15 – 10.40: Solarcan demonstration in the cabin with tea and biscuits
10.40 – 12.40: photography walk
12.40 – 13.00: sharing back at the cabin


What to bring
Please bring your own photographic device(s) – this could include digital or analogue cameras or your phone. We will have a couple of iPads available for anyone without a photographic device to use.

The workshop takes place mostly outside and involves walking. Please wear sturdy footwear, check the weather forecast in advance and wear appropriate clothing. This may include warm clothing and waterproofs or a sunhat. You may also wish to bring sunscreen and insect repellent.

We will provide some light refreshments during the event but you may wish to bring your own drinks and snacks.



Access
This workshop is open to anyone, regardless of their experience with photography. Children over the age of 7 are welcome but those under 18 should be accompanied by an adult.

This is event has limited accessibility. The workshop takes place mostly outside across sites of uneven ground with no paths.


About Sam Laughlin
Sam Laughlin is a British visual artist primarily concerned with intricate natural processes, patterns and cycles. Mainly utilising large-format black-and-white photography, his work is characterised by sustained and informed engagement with the natural world - things which occur slowly and a slow way of looking at them.

From early June to the start of September, Sam is engaging with the developing ecology of the Wild Heart sites in the Scottish Borders through an extended period of creative research and practice, in association with the Borders Forest Trust.

Sam has exhibited widely both in the UK and internationally, including at Jerwood Space, Impressions Gallery and Towner Art Gallery. In 2017 he was awarded the Jerwood/Photoworks award. He works mainly on personal projects, sometimes in the form of commissions, such as for GRAIN Projects and John Hansard Gallery. He is currently based in Somerset, where he works as an Associate Lecturer in Photography.


About Borders Forest Trust
Since 1996 Borders Forest Trust has been reviving native woodlands and woodland culture in the south of Scotland for ecological, social and economic wellbeing. BFT focuses on the heritage of native upland habitats and all the plants and wildlife associated with them, re-establishing these for the public to experience and enjoy.

At its core the charity addresses the ecological need to return these habitats to a healthy natural state, a heritage so rare in Southern Scotland that few people even recognise it is missing. BFT’s work is focussed in an area known as the Wild Heart, high in the Southern Uplands between the Scottish Borders and Dumfries and Galloway.

Across the Wild Heart, BFT are restoring natural habitats and healthy ecosystems through native tree planting, wetland and meadow creation and peatland restoration and management. The combined land area of the sites which make up the Wild Heart is 3,000ha, enabling work to be carried out on a significant landscape scale.