The Book

A day at home today since I'm feeling a little off colour.

Anyway, I've been reminding myself (over a cup of tea) of the joys of a coffee table book I bought at the Edinburgh Book Festival last summer by Erskine Beveridge entitled 'Wanderings with a Camera in Scotland'.

Beveridge was a 19th century textile manufacturer and an amateur photographer and the book comprises some excellent images derived from glass plates which have survived to this day and are now held by the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland. The book reproduces almost 200 of Beveridge's images, mostly of rural life in Scotland in the last half of the 19th century and is an absolute joy and inspiration to appreciate the quality of his pin-sharp captures.