SARA STEVENSON: Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth

FREE EVENT

We are delighted to welcome Dr Sara Stevenson in conversation with artist and publisher Alexander Hamilton, about her new photography study book Hill and Adamson’s The Fisherwomen and Men of the Firth of Forth.

About the book: 
In the course of three years, working at the very beginning of the art of photography, the Scottish pioneers, David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson, working with their assistant, Jessie Mann, produced thousands of images, creating an archive that was both artistically daring and historically invaluable.

Nowhere is this clearer than in their series of pictures of the fishing communities of the Firth of Forth, and especially the village of Newhaven. These photographs, described as the world’s first social documentary images, capture not only the men whose labour took them to sea, but also the women whose strength and resilience sustained the community on shore. The fisherwomen of Newhaven, with their distinctive dress, their heavy creels carried into Edinburgh’s streets, and their vital roles in the economy of the village, lead this story.

By gathering together many of Hill and Adamson’s pictures of fishing life and placing them in their historical setting, the book restores balance to the historical record and invites readers to see the photographs anew. The calotype process, with its soft tonalities and delicate textures, imbues these portraits with a presence that is both immediate and timeless. The sitters –women and men alike – look out at us across nearly two centuries, their faces bearing the dignity of work, community, and tradition. They are people whose strength and character endure through the images. This book ensures that the fisherwomen and men of Newhaven remain visible, their presence still shaping our understanding of photography’s earliest and most profound achievements.

About the author:
Dr Sara Stevenson was chief curator at the National Galleries of Scotland for 36 years and was responsible for building and developing the Scottish National Photography Collection. Her doctorate in the photography of David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson was published as The Personal Art of David Octavius Hill (Yale) in 2002 when it won the International Center of Photography's Infinity Award.