Why are her pictures so remarkable?

Image by permission, Orkney Library and Archive, D156/0066

When I first looked through Dr Garvie's photographs, in the North Ronaldsay Archive, it was to find pictures of my family, and where they lived. It didn't take long to recognise that she was no ordinary photographer; that these weren't 'snapshots' she was taking.

There is such movement in her composition, and her pictures of people's lives are so natural, compared with the stiff poses of other portrait work at the time.

She treats her subjects with respect; these aren't people whose lives are being recorded because they are 'quaint'.

As doctor on the island, she knew her community, was a part of it. You can see that in the sense of ease in front of the camera. 

I have come to know the hundreds of photographs she took, and it is clear that she set out to record as many aspects of island life as she could, from sheep management to ships, kelp gathering to roofing the bakery, to the arrival of the first plane service to the island, often recorded in pictures taken on more than one camera, so that she could capture a sequence of work. Then, there are her portraits of families, womens' lives, babies, in front of the house, or in the garden, children at the school, or at play. 

Together with Beatrice Thomson, and other islanders, I have tried to caption as many of these photographs as is possible, so that the names of people and places are not lost. Orkney Library and Archive have supported that work. I think another collection of captioned island photographs of this kind would be very hard to find.

In 2023, Jenny Brownrigg, curator at the Glasgow School of Art, put together an exhibition of 14 Scottish Women Photographers, for the City Art Gallery in Edinburgh.

She included Beatrice Garvie.

This is what Jenny Brownrigg had to say about Dr Garvie's work.

Snippets