About the Orkney Calendar

Orkney is the main island for the group of islands that lie just north of the Scottish mainland. It’s relatively remote, and even in high summer it doesn’t see the barrage of tourists that the rest of Scotland endures. But it is no less compelling. Although it has been part of Scotland since the 15th century, the Vikings ruled it for longer. It may seem like the UK, but the vibe of the place is different. It’s not Scotland, it’s Orkney.

I thought I was going there to play some tunes, but instead, the land itself became the compelling attraction. I had knowledgeable guides, my wife’s cousin who for the last decade has run an archeological field school at the Ness of Brodgar, the Neolithic site that has rewritten the book on 6,000 year old prehistory. They are deeply attached to this place and the family showed me their favorite haunts. The weather was cooperative, meaning, rarely sunny, and often cool and wet. My favorite. I’d never seen such compelling and changeable skies, and I come from a place (the Pacific Northwest) that prides itself on its connoisseurship of gray skies.

I am, at heart, a landscape photographer who has had many detours and tangents in my 35-year professional career. But I always regarded landscape work as the heart of my craft and my personal vision. When 20 years ago I gave up my darkroom and my panoramic cameras, I thought I was leaving that behind. This trip to a remote Scottish island reignited that passion. The attentiveness to place and light and technique resulted in a 2-week creative burst of work that got me back on a path that I didn’t know I missed as much as I did.

I also had with me a camera that shot black and white film. If I’m intent on getting reacquainted with a prior life, that is one sure way. Almost half of the photos in here are from that camera (Olympus OM-1 with Neopan Acros film). Photoshop is now my darkroom, and my manipulations map with the control I once asserted there.

I don’t purport to be making any deep insights into the nature or history or life on Orkney. I am a tourist with a superficial knowledge of the place. The meaning comes from the impact it made on me as an artist. I intend this as a respectful homage to those who know Orkney deeper than I do, and an inspiration for anyone who loves those northern landscapes.

Doug Plummer
Seattle, WA

PS. Here are some insightful Orkney memoirs that I read before my trip

Swimming With Seals, Victoria Whitworth. A story of one woman’s reckoning with loss through swimming in the cold waters of Orkney with seals, gulls and orcas. A wonderfully meditative journey around Orkney through an unusual lens.

Close To Where The Heart Gives Out: A Year in the Life of an Orkney Doctor, Malcolm Alexander. An enchanting memoir of a doctor’s relocation from a busy urban practice to the tiny community of Eday in the Orkney Islands.

Chucking It All: How Downshifting to a Windswept Scottish Island Did Nothing to Improve My Quality of Life, Max Scratchman. A snarky memoir that evades the usual romantic tropes of rural relocation. Probably the most accurate of the bunch.

 

 

 

About Doug Plummer

 

Doug has been taking photos literally his entire lifetime, and he has had a long, successful career photographing for magazines, corporations, and institutions for over 35 years. He has a strong visual sensibility grounded in authentic documentary seeing, as well as a body of fine art landscape photography that has had a long exhibit history. Doug is also a musician and contra dancer, and served on the board of the Country Dance and Song Society from 2015 to 2021. He lives in Seattle’s Bryant neighborhood with his wife Robin, where they host music jams and house concerts.

 

Orkney Music

Jennifer Wrigley puts it best: “When you grow up sitting next to your forefathers and playing music there is a certain rhythm and manner in their voice. Orcadians speak quite quietly and softly with their fun staccato accent bearing a recognisably Scandinavian lilt. Their fiddling style similarly uses a short, light, distinctive bowing technique which gives the music an understated simple lift. A traditional tune was one you could hum: memorable and catchy and passed on aurally.” 

There is a concerted effort to retain the traditional Orkney sound. The Traditional Fiddler’s project has been teaching young people the local tunes on accordion and fiddle for over two decades. I attended an adult class on Orkney tunes led by Karen Tweed, misleading labeled as a “slow session.” Unlike other parts of Scotland, there isn’t a session scene as such, especially since the pandemic. Outside of the Orkney Folk Festival in May, the music is more private and harder to find. You’re more likely to hear the Orkney sound from musicians that tour internationally. Fara has long been one of my favorite groups, along with Hazel and Jennifer Wrigley, Louise Bichan, and The Chair.

Here are some links to learn more
Background on Orkney music: https://fiddle-online.com/blog/background-of-the-music/music-from-the-orkney-islands/
The Orkney Traditional music Project: https://www.otmp.co.uk/
The Orkney Folk Festival: https://orkneyfolkfestival.com/line-up/orkney-traditonal-music-project/
Profiles of Orkney fiddlers: https://britishmusiccollection.org.uk/article/sounds-orkney-jennifer-wrigley