Freezing a Moment in Time

KAREN EMSLIE considers the work of Shetland photographer Mark Sinclair

With a childhood spent skateboarding, building complex technical Lego sets and remote control planes it is obvious that Mark was always curious about how movement and construction work. But how does what fascinates us when we are young translate into what we do later in life?

He left school with no fixed idea of what he wanted to do. He considered art school but instead went to Robert Gordon’s University in Aberdeen and studied a BEng. in Electronic and Information Engineering. Perhaps this was a natural choice but it was one that proved unfulfilling. However, with characteristic persistence he completed the course nonetheless.

Photography took a back seat with the intensities of study but other things interested him such as computing and the complexities of origami, activities where logic, patterns and beauty all co-exist. He bought his first PC while a student. It broke almost immediately but Mark took it apart and, of course, fixed it.

Like many Shetlanders away from the islands he missed being surrounded by sea but he did try life on the mainland post-university. However, he eventually returned to Shetland. He studied computing at Shetland College and worked for a local computer company.

It was here that his then boss showed him a digital camera, which had just become widely available. He was blown away and his interest in photography was re-ignited.

“With digital photography you see the image straight away, you can adjust it and re-shoot it. You can learn faster. So much goes along with it, the hardware, the software.” Puzzles that Mark can unpick, pull apart and figure out.

A killer mix then, technical grounding and persistence combined with an instinctive sense of composition and colour. “I just know when it is right and when it’s wrong,” he says of composition.

It is the same with colour and tone. “I can tell if a colour photograph will make a good black and white one. I don’t know how. I just know.” Interestingly at this point he says that he is slightly colour blind. “I do wonder if the audience sees the photographs like I do”.

The logical and the seemingly abstract fit together rather satisfyingly though. The fundamental principles of composition can also be explained in terms of classical mathematical formula. Likewise the science of colour is perhaps as beautiful as colour itself.
 

Fuelled by the possibilities of digital photography Mark had rediscovered a passion and eventually took part in his first public exhibition in 2003, the Open Exhibition at Shetland’s Bonhoga Gallery.

The photograph he showed was of a water droplet in mid-air. It was somehow askew but perfectly balanced and featured strong patterns and contrasts. The subject matter makes sense when you consider that original roll of film capturing ice cubes splashing into glasses of orange juice.

Neat associations are delightful but are perhaps more than mere coincidence. There is a clear connection between photographs and photographers. It is revealed in the language we use when describing them and is not simply a play on words. The camera lens focuses and the act of photography focuses the mind. A photograph suspends time and motion and the photographer suspends other thought when taking a photograph.

As Mark explains; “Waiting for the right light or a wave holds my interest. It is the only time I chill out.” It is an intense and solitary activity. He doesn’t carry his camera the whole time though. Rather he sets aside chunks of time in which to take photographs. Perhaps this is because the act of taking photographs is all-consuming.

Mark’s partner, Suzanne Shearer, is creative too. She runs a textiles company called Phatsheep designing scarves and fabrics. Buoyed by the reception his photograph at the Bonhoga Gallery received, Mark started to show work with Suzanne at Shetland craft fairs. Luckily, Mark’s creative interests also worked commercially.
 

Mark built Suzanne a website to promote her textiles and eventually established an online presence with her under the name Phatsheep Photography. In 2004 he enrolled on an Open College of the Arts Photography course. Now he was able to concentrate on the fundamental, aesthetic qualities of photography. He benefited from the structure of working within set projects and exploring themes that he wouldn’t normally have done.

His photography was becoming more than a hobby but he was still working full time in IT, now for the NHS. Juggling employment and any creative pursuit can prove tricky especially as your creative work becomes successful and Mark was getting more and more commissions.

In December 2004 he was asked by Shetland Amenity Trust to document the construction of the new Shetland Museum and Archives for a project called Art on Site.

Mark was on site at Hay’s Dock in Lerwick from the earliest stages of construction through to completion. A person whose work is naturally solitary was suddenly dropped into a building site, surrounded by frenzy and people. A seemingly incongruous and uncomfortable match, but the results work.

In an almost covert operation over several years he captured the sculptural transformations of the building, the people who built it and the beautiful silence of architectural detail.

Mark’s Art on Site photographs capture the many facets of the project. They range from images of the enormous, looming steel skeleton that underpins the building to the intensity of structural patterns and the eerie wholeness of completed but, as yet, empty rooms.

The legacy to Shetland is a photographic archive of the now unseen layers of material and hard physical work that created the Museum & Archives.

Building Design Partnership, the architects of the Museum and Archives, were so struck by Mark’s work that they commissioned him to take images of another of their projects, the newly completed Perth Concert Hall. This is another striking body of work where architectural patterns and light have been harnessed to create dramatic images.

In June 2007 Mark became a full time photographer. His natural persistence and commitment to getting things exactly right made work in IT stressful and ultimately unfulfilling. However, these qualities translate beautifully into what he does best and it was time to change things dramatically.
 

Such a leap is a risk but Mark has perseverance, is technically fastidious and has a great, big dose of that more elusive stuff – talent. He is making new work but also going through thousands and thousands of photographs, archiving, researching new processes and building an online body of work.

Mark’s uncle was also a keen photographer and when he was young Mark would go with him in the car chasing sunsets to capture on film. Now Mark drives around Shetland with his camera. He walks the coastline, finds new places, returns to old ones. The changing sea and sky of these islands meaning a familiar spot never looks exactly the same twice.

In 2007 he was both commended and short listed in the AA Landscape Photographer of the Year Award, an annual competition judged by renowned landscape photographer Charlie Waite. A selection of work from the Art on Site project is going on show at The Lighthouse in Glasgow in August and Mark is starting a new project in collaboration with another archivist of sorts, Kay Wheatcroft.

Kay’s great-grandparents had a four year correspondence between 1858 and 1862 during their courtship on Shetland. The letters have been carefully kept and handed down through the family. Mark will take photographs of the Shetland landscape and surroundings in response to this body of correspondence.

Carefully keeping things has other benefits. Mark and Suzanne had their first child last year. Joe is already fascinated by digital cameras and is getting into Lego. Mark still has his old technical Lego sets “There are only a few bits missing, but I’ll find them on eBay,” he says. Perhaps the collections and patterns will continue into a new generation.

© Karen Emslie, 2008

Links

• Mark’s Portfolio
• Art on Site
• Stock Library