Well, Well, Well...

Here's a funny thing. A bunch of photos I took 45 years ago are appearing as illustrations in a book an old friend of mine has just published (Stonypath Days: Stephen Bann: Wilmington Square Books) I got my copy yesterday. It's a collection of the letters that he exchanged with the Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay in the early 1970s. Finlay had recently moved to a farmstead in the Pentland Hills and was beginning to turn it into the garden-cum-art installation now known as Little Sparta- and I was the only person, by holy accident, taking colour photos of him at work and play. The pictures- even though colour slides aren't supposed to have a long shelf life- have reproduced very well- and I'm proud of them. I figure in the text too- to the extent of warranting an explanatory footnote.