Summer 2013

I’ve had an incredibly busy summer of music and photography; I played with Gria at Heb Celt Festival in Stornoway, Insider Festival, the Edinburgh Fringe and Lorient Interceltique Festival, I photographed three lovely weddings, took photos and videos of Glasgow based band Fat Suit, and played lots of great ceilidhs with Whisky Kiss and Dalamist. I also had a short holiday in Orkney with the wonderful Elly Lucas, a fellow photographer and musician who I seem to have a massive amount in common with. We met for the first time at Celtic Connections in January and instantly ‘clicked,’ Elly is a wonderfully talented and super lovely lady. We had a mini ‘photo-day’ together in Orkney, see some of the photos below.

Fat Suit teaser video, edited by Gus Stirrat, shot by myself:

I’m now preparing to head to Canada and America for two months, leaving this week. Firstly Valley of the Moon fiddle camp in California (with many thanks to them for a scholarship towards the course fees!) before heading to BC to visit family, then working my across Canada and America to eventually end up in Cape Breton in October during Celtic Colours International Festival. I’m going to be working on a photography, film and music based project looking at the links between Scotland and Canada, concentrating firstly on my family links and then the historical, cultural and musical links with Cape Breton. In 1950 my grandmother Margaret Sarah Tait travelled to Canada to stay with relatives and to mull over two marriage proposals (thankfully she eventually came home and married my grandfather!) I want to find out more and tell her story through my elderly Canadian cousins. I’m also very interested in the way Scottish music has developed in Scotland compared to in Canada and in the people who brought that music over and passed it on. I’m very excited to meet new people, learn new music, possibly to collaborate and maybe do some gigs while I’m over. Any suggestions/advice/contacts would be very much appreciated! My cousin Alice Tait will be joining me for the first couple of weeks at the camp and visiting relatives too… double trouble! This is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time and I’m very excited that I’ve finally managed to make it happen. I see this as a long term project which I very much hope will lead to future projects and travels. I shall be blogging and updating my Facebook page and my tumblr as I go for anyone who is interested.