Photography exhibition to celebrate double milestone

TOP Scottish newspaper and magazine freelance photographer, Murdo Macleod, will contribute to the 25th anniversary of the An Lanntair arts venue in Stornoway next month with an exhibition in the venue where he had his and the venue’s first show when it opened.

Macleod was a student when he put together the exhibition on Edinburgh’s homeless people for An Lanntair in 1985. The Lewis-born photographer has gone on to capture countless celebrities, writers and politicians and cover some of the UK’s biggest news stories.

The exhibition, which opens on July 5 and runs until August 21, is titled ‘Gnius’, Gaelic for ‘Face’. It will contain portraits of prominent figures in the fields of sport, arts, politics and business, and is sponsored by Harris Tweed Hebrides.

Among the photographs to be displayed are those of Bill Clinton, Girls Aloud, Stephen Hawking, Sorley Maclean, Michael Schumacher, Margaret Thatcher and Donald Trump.

An Lanntair director, Roddy Murray, told the Press and Journal newspaper: “It was an obvious choice to book-end our quarter century with exhibitions of Murdo’s work. For sentiment and symmetry, yes; but, more importantly, because his work deserves to be seen en masse and because the arc of his career so closely parallels that of An Lanntair.”

Macleod’s work was featured in a splendid six–page colour spread in this week’s Sunday Herald Magazine – focusing on eight of his best photographs.