Through the mind’s eye

16 February 2024

Blog articles

By Graeme Roger Visual Artist

As one of Luminate’s ‘Arts in Care’ artists I spent one-to-one time with residents in three Highlands care homes: Andersons in Elgin, Whinnieknowe in Nairn and Highview in Inverness.

I used both polaroid and digital cameras to document the immediate surroundings and ventured further afield based upon the interests of the people taking part. I decided to work more closely with individuals instead of workshops to allow more time to get to know people and have conversations and make friendships in a much more grounded way.

A common thread in all the care homes was that people really enjoyed the edit process, cropping, adjusting colour and exposure. Having the power and means to make their own creative decisions was a clear and a very natural part of the process.

Whinnieknowe

I spent some sunny afternoons at Whinnieknowe (with activities co-ordinator Sarah Butters) where we initially adopted a drop-in approach. I would ‘hang out’ in the conservatory or in the outside seating area where residents could suss me out before deciding if they wanted to take part. This resulted in some beautiful digital and polaroid imagery including portraits and still lives.

Waves roll in on a northern Scottish beach, close beside a roadside. A narrow beach with sporadic grasses is separated from the road by a guardrail — Waves rolling to shore, taken on one of Simon's trips out with Graeme. (All of Simon’s B&W photographs were developed by Matt Sillars at Inverness Darkroom)

A large Scots baronial building sits in manicured grounds. — Cawdor Castle, near Nairn, is captured by Simon's antique camera.

A mix of pleasure boats and working fishing boats are moored in a Scottish harbour — Busy harbour scene.

Simon was one of my early participants. I visited him four times over a few months and he was keen to show me a vintage camera that he had in his room. We decided to find some film for it and see what the camera could do. We had two spools, the first was used at Whinnieknowe as a test spool where Simon took portraits of residents, we then did a road trip in the surrounding area with the second spool. The photographs he captured are both atmospheric and beautiful.

Simon had worked as a technical author, but also enjoyed taking things apart to see how they worked. He said it was his father’s fault for giving him a mechano set in 1946.

I enjoyed actually taking photographs, I didn’t realise quite how much I enjoyed that. Normally I take snaps, rather than photographs, I use my phone for photos nowadays because it’s so easy. [This though is] a VPK - vest pocket kodak ... it’s a second hand camera ... I would think 1963 is the last time I’ve used it.

Simon, Whinnieknowe care home

Andersons

My visits to Anderson’s Care Home in Elgin were based around the experience of taking photographs as a way of documenting the environment and stimulating conversation with the people who live there. Initial visits included spending an afternoon with Sara in the gardens taking photographs (she said she had never used a camera before) and we chatted about plants, gardens, dancing and cooking. Sara selected her favourite image taken on a beautiful July afternoon in the sunshine, which she edited.

A large red minivan is parked near a garden nursery. The words: 'Laich of Moray Trust' are printed on its side — Graeme was able to go on trips with some of the residents he worked with.

A women with lively blue eyes and short fluffy white hair sits on a garden bench in the sunshine. She is wearing a blue checked shirt and blue pedal pushers, and holding a cup of tea in a fine china cup. Beside her on the bench is a polaroid camera unit. — Sara enjoyed time in the garden with Graeme, finding inspiration from the flowers and other plants.

A woman's hand is touching the flowers in a barrel planted full of bright blooms - yellow, pink and purple fom teh lavender. — Floral inspiration at Andersons care home.

I share an interest in local history and architecture with Ian which meant it was easy for us to find topics to relate to. Ian was an Elder at the church for 30 years, ‘looking after the fabric of the building and fundraising’ and hadn’t been to St Giles in Elgin since before the pandemic. It is a short distance from Andersons, so we went along for an afternoon as a chance for Ian to reflect on his time there and to hear more detail about his favourite features of the building and some stories about the maintenance and upkeep.

Andersons was also a source of history itself, having been a care home since 1815. Long-serving staff member Joan Cowe joined us, showing us things that had been found stashed around the building, including architects’ drawings, a gramophone and letter press among other unusual finds.

It was a treat to know that staff saw Ian blossom through my creative programme, particularly the opportunity to visit a building that was an important part of his life.

A polaroid image of a statue atop a red granite pillar. It shows a classical figure in a toga holding a laurel wreath aloft. In its other hand there is a sword pointing downwards. — Ian captured many aspects of St Giles Church using a polaroid camera on a visit there with Graeme.

An old fashioned portable gramophone is open and a man's hand is touching the edge of the turntable. It has a winding handle and it all folds back down into a carrying case. — Ian and Graeme discovered a lot of curios around Andersons, such as this portable gramophone, with the help of interested staff members.

Many large brass pipes of a church organ fill the frame. In the centre there is a separate compartment holding many smaller pipes that add to the organ's sound. — Ian's fondness for St Giles Church in Elgin proved a captivating topic for both photographer and Graeme.

Highview

At Highview in Inverness the focus of the sessions was with Ronnie, a retired policeman and member of mountain rescue teams on Skye. Ronnie’s interest lay in landscape photography and so after initial test images in the gardens (Ronnie was keen on digital only) we went to take shots of the Kessock bridge and Caledonian Canal before doing some test drone shots from the gardens at Highview.

As the images on this page show, photography was a creative tool that opened up so many different stories and perspectives through the Arts in Care programme.

Ronnie, a retired policeman, was keen to explore the way drone photography worked.

Article written by Graeme Roger Visual Artist

Graeme Roger is a visual artist working across film, public art, performance, photography, installation & theatre. All his projects are collaborative in nature with other artists, musicians, directors and the wider community. Recent projects included ‘Remembering Together’ in Moray, creating covid memorials with Caroline Inckle and Graeme is a project partner in the Culture Collective program as part of the Arts in Moray collective.