Using a 'battered medium format camera' once belonging to Fay Godwin, Alex Boyd captures the archipelago of St Kilda in a new light, from a 21st century perspective. From the crumbling Cold War military base to the wild beauty of the natural landscape, this collection of photographs is both an ode to the history of the islands and an insight into the modern day lives of those who live and work on St Kilda today.
What a remarkable book this is: testimony to a commitment of method, a brilliance of eye and a subtlety of spirit. Made of what Rilke calls 'heart-work' as well as 'the work of the eyes', vigilant against nostalgia and ruin-lust, it explores and records the forces that have shaped contemporary St Kilda. Alex Boyd's images represent a major addition to the tradition of modern landscape photography, of which Fay Godwin - on whose camera these images were taken - was such a crucial twentieth-century figure. ROBERT MacFARLANE
Alex Boyd was born in Germany in 1984, and grew up in Ayrshire, Scotland. Educated at the University of Glasgow, his work has been widely exhibited, with solo exhibitions at the Scottish Parliament and at prestigious venues such as the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Ulster Academy and Royal Academy in London. He is perhaps best known for his series 'Sonnets', a collaboration with the late Poet Laureate Edwin Morgan, which shows a faceless figure in the landscape reminiscent of the work of German artist Caspar David Friedrich. In 2012 Boyd was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art (FRSA). He has worked alongside photographers such as Rankin, and Japanese master Takeshi Shikama. His work is held in several national collections such as the National Gallery of Scotland, The Royal Photographic Society, and The Royal Scottish Academy, as well as private collections across the world. In 2018, his first book, St Kilda: The Silent Islands, was shortlisted for the Saltire Society First Book Award.