photographer at the disruption

This is a small detail of a print hanging in Dunscore Church. It used to fascinate me long before I knew anything about the original painting, but now I know about Robert Adamson and David Octavius Hill, the Scottish pioneers of photography, the story of its creation is one of which I never tire. I think I may have blipped the original painting when I visited it at an exhibition at the Scottish Portrait Gallery a few years ago, so I shan't retell the story, but it can be read HERE.

This small detail shows Robert Adamson with his camera, and David Octavius Hill with his sketchbook. It is especially poignant since only 5 years after the Great Disruption, Adamson died of TB and never saw the finished painting, which took 23 years to complete.