Nifty shades of grey

If autumn is, as the poet John Keats proclaimed, a season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, then November, by comparison, can seem just a little ... well, dull. 

So what better time to savour Perth's photo laureate of all things drab, Alan McCredie, whose latest book, Scotland the Dreich, has become an unlikely runaway success. 

McCredie has produced 50 photographs for the collection, all drained of light and colour, but don’t let the flatness of tone fool you.

For all their dreariness, dreich days have an allure all of their own and in this, the photographer’s third book, he perfectly captures the strange poetry of a land under lowering skies. 

For all their dreariness, dreich days have an allure all of their own.

The former Perth High School pupil spent countless days scouring the country for opaque windows of opportunity and his patience has been richly rewarded.

Scotland the Dreich may be, as one online reviewer enthused, ‘a good gift for a grumpy dad’, but the book – now in its second reprint – never gets bogged down in mirk and mire.

McCredie has publisher Luath Press to thank for the idea: “Their director called me one day, saying he wanted to produce a book called Scotland The Dreich and he’d like me to take the pictures. It appears I’m the go-to photographer when it comes to dreichness, which I’m quite pleased about.

“I’m a little surprised by how well it’s done, but Luath have marketed the book extremely well. When I was taking the pictures, everyone I met seemed to think it was a great idea, so I had a sneaking suspicion it might catch on.

“It sells steadily but, like all authors, I tend not to know sales until the royalty cheque drops through the letterbox.”

The perfect dreich day, says McCredie, is a delicate blend of light, water, mist and cloud: get the mix wrong, and your day may just be foggy, or rainy, or damp; get the balance right, and the perfect dreich day awaits.

We all love summer days of unbroken blue and soft scented breezes, but what would they be without their counterpoint – days of mist, cold and bone-chilling dampness?

McCredie loves a balmy day as much as the next sun worshipper, but he loves a dreich one more. “There’s a stillness to a dreich day,” he muses, “that’s unmatched by any other. There are no violent rainstorms or shattering winds: dreich days are not days of excess.

“They’re quiet days: melancholy, yet not depressing. They’re a blank canvas on which to project future hopes. They’re days to stay at home by the fireside, with a book and a dog asleep at your feet. Dreich days are rarer than you might think.” 

There’s a stillness to a dreich day that’s unmatched by any other. There are no violent rainstorms or shattering winds: dreich days are not days of excess.

Neither, in McCredie’s book, is dreich a purely meteorological term. Not all of the images are weather related: some were taken indoors, capturing that dreich feeling we’ve all experienced at times. 

There’s no hint, however, that all of that grey got him down. Making the book, McCredie says, was a pleasure from start to finish, albeit one that rendered him damp for days on end, often in out of the way places.

It’s a book with an impressive geographical reach but, surprisingly, for someone who’s spent years soaking up the beauties of Perthshire, McCredie chose only four shots of the county.

There’s the stark interior of a fish and chip shop in Pitlochry; a puzzling snap of a log cabin at Logierait, glimpsed through mist; and a baffling portrait of a drookit couple caught in the smirr at Sheriffmuir, one in a dishevelled suit and tie, the other resplendent in rabbit ears.

Also included is a picture of McDiarmid Park, home of McCredie’s beloved St Johnstone: “I was very pleased to include it, even if it was to highlight a sign for funeral teas at the ground. I’ve witnessed so many mournful performances over the years that it had to go in.”

Choosing the final 50 photographs wasn’t easy, but McCredie is happy he’s got the balance right. For him, each turn of the page is a visual prompt, transporting him back to the photo shoot, rekindling vivid memories – where it was, when it happened and how it evolved.

A favourite was at Pleasureland amusement arcade in Arbroath. “It was, unsurprisingly, a freezing day and I stood in front of the building for ages trying to get a shot I liked,” Alan recalls.

“Then a little girl in a red coat ran past and suddenly the photo came to life. Often these fleeting, chance moments are what transforms a photo from an average shot into one that’s a bit more special.”

Moments such as these, like dreichness itself, come along infrequently but are what drives McCredie on. A freelance photographer since 2006, he’s worked with agencies in Scotland and beyond. Although he has specialised in theatre and television, he’s best known for documentary and travel work and is part of the Documenting Britain photo collective.

Based in Edinburgh, he retains a soft spot for Perth, where he moved with his family aged seven: “I have great memories of growing up there, many of them tied in with Perth High School.

“Perth’s a lovely place to have your childhood – lots of parks and green spaces. I have very fond memories of spending all my pocket money in John Menzies in the High Street and Goldrush Records in Kinnoull Street.”

Perth’s a lovely place to have your childhood – lots of parks and green spaces.

Having taken snaps since childhood, McCredie got serious in his mid-20s when he bought a second hand Minolta camera. More ‘kit’ followed as he sought to perfect his art.

Eventually, a friend persuaded him to leave his job and enrol on a photography course at Stevenson College in Edinburgh. Having already completed a degree, he was unsure about a return to full-time education. 

“I’m incredibly glad I took the plunge,” says Alan, “and eternally grateful to my friend for nagging me to do so. I improved massively as a photographer at college, taking photos every day, so it was there my career really began.”

After college, McCredie worked with Edinburgh-based photographer Sam Sloan, whose focus is in advertising. Although it was great fun, McCredie eventually felt drawn to books and magazines. 

“As a freelance photographer,” says Alan, “you have to take whatever work is going, so – although my focus has shifted – I still do corporate work and enjoy that side immensely. 

“I’ve also been lucky to photograph some high profile figures and they have all been very generous with their time. I love books, so I’m always happy photographing authors, especially writers such as Val McDermid and Ian Rankin. “

Photographing the American civil-rights campaigner Jesse Jackson was also a highlight; so too was being asked to photograph Malala Yousafzai, who the Taliban tried to murder in Pakistan when she was a schoolgirl.

“When you hear her story, how quietly she tells it, and how brave she was, it makes you feel incredibly humbled and inspired,” says Alan. “She is a huge hero of mine.”

Capturing the essence of a person on camera remains a mystery, even in the smartphone era, but McCredie sees no threat from technology: “I‘m delighted with the rise of the camera phone. I use mine all the time and it’s the way cameras are headed.

“For me, the actual camera is the least important element – the concept, the ability to create the image you have been asked to create, the composition, the lighting and the ‘feel’ of the image are for me, far more important than the black box with the button on it.”

Being paid to travel, black box in hand, remains a source of wonder: “I get to meet a huge range of interesting people, go to lovely places – and some dreich ones – and make a living doing something I love. I consider myself to be extremely lucky.”

New projects are on the horizon. A collaboration with writer Stephen Millar called Tribes of Glasgow is out early next year and a book with Val McDermid, entitled My Scotland, will go on sale in June. McCredie has also begun working on a loose follow up to Scotland The Dreich called Scotland The Braw, which will again be published by Luath.  

“There may even be a ‘More Scotland The Dreich’ at some point,” says Alan, “but I’ll need to see if I feel like being constantly rained on again.” If he’s prepared to suffer for his art once more, then that, paradoxically, is a cheering prospect.