MA WEE TIN O’ SHORTBREID

What happens when a country becomes a product?

Ma Wee Tin o’ Shortbreid is a work in progress about the Highlands and Islands being sold as a product, and the people who come to buy it. The title comes from the shortbread tin many Scottish families kept their photographs in, with its romantic picture of Scotland on the lid. Made on repeated camper van trips, the work follows visitors who come for castles, tartan and empty roads, and end up waiting for somebody to move out of the frame. Passing places become car parks and viewpoints become campsites. The pictures are about the gap between Scotland as advertised and the place people find.

At Eilean Donan Castle, a visitor in a white dress poses under an orange umbrella as others take photographs.
Passengers take photographs through the window of a Hairy Coo tour coach.
A bearded man in a striped jumper scans the hills through binoculars on the Isle of Mull.
A woman leans out of the window of a stone shop with old Brooke Bond Tea and Cadbury's Cocoa signs.
Three men in Highland dress hold pikes and smile at a Highland gathering.
Two women hold up a geological map of Scotland against a camper van covered in chalk notes.
A man in a kilt and sporran stands over a football on the grass.
A visitor photographs life-size cut-outs of figures in Highland dress and a ball gown in a castle room.
A man in Highland dress sits on the grass as a crowd gathers round him at a Highland games.
A visitor reaches over a fence towards a Highland cow as friends take photographs.
Visitors photograph old framed prints on a museum wall with their phones.
Visitors take photographs beside parked cars at a roadside viewpoint.
A woman and a man in felt sauna hats step out of a wooden barrel sauna by the water.
Visitors in hoods and rain jackets film and take photographs on a wet, windy viewing platform.
Women in long cloaks and dresses pose among tall standing stones.
Visitors relax on a sandy loch beach with picnic tables and mountains behind.
A couple and their dog relax in the back of a camper van with its doors open in a car park.
A woman rides a red mobility scooter along a loch-side path with a border collie running beside her.
Two tourists sit on camping chairs beside a motorhome and a tour van on a mountain road, with a warning triangle out.
A couple sit inside the pop-up roof of a camper van against rocky hills.
A man in a patterned jumper makes a hot drink in the back of his camper van as snow falls.
A young man in a kilt and glasses sips a drink through a straw inside a tent.
At Dunvegan Castle, a visitor films on a selfie stick in a red-walled room hung with portraits.
A visitor in a blue rain poncho looks at a life-size figure of a cook among pots and pans in a historic kitchen.
A man photographs a peat stack beside an old cart and a croft house.
A visitor stands in the dim, smoky interior of a traditional blackhouse with a peat fire.
A woman in a pink hat strokes a Highland cow over a fence as a woman in a kilt holds a coffee.
An artist in a cap paints bright orange strokes in his crowded studio.
Souvenir mugs printed with kilted legs and Highland cows on a gift shop shelf.
A small pony in a blue rug and a white horse graze on a misty moor.
An older man climbs down from a red International tractor as a woman in a red cap sits on a mobility scooter.
A woman in a pink T-shirt reading "I like my men like my wellies, tough and dirty" stands among sheep at an agricultural show.
Spectators lean on a fence to watch a young rider on a horse at an agricultural show.
A piper in full Highland dress and feather bonnet walks along a pavement.
Three older men in tweed jackets and kilts laugh together at a Highland gathering.
Visitors with hot drinks look into a shop window displaying a stag's head and a Highland cow painting.
Two people stand in front of a shop window covered with a picture of a rocky Skye landscape.
Walking poles and yellow rucksacks rest on a picnic bench with a pointed mountain behind.
Walkers with big rucksacks and sleeping mats set off along a hill path.
Campers stand among tents in a pine wood, with clothes hung on a tree to dry.
Hikers rest and high-five on a stone path beside a wooden signpost.
A lone walker crosses worn sand dunes on a coastal path.
A man in a midge net carries a large grey bag beside a river.
A couple in sunglasses take a selfie with a camera held above their heads in a car park.
Snacks and shopping fill the front boot of an electric car in a car park.
A small dog sits beside the stone wall of a thatched blackhouse.
A woman in a patchwork coat stands among standing stones under a rainbow.
A group of visitors crowds the doorway of a whitewashed cottage as a man looks out.
A tattooed man in a vest stands beneath mounted stag heads in a castle room.
A man in a cowboy hat holds a tray of whisky samples in a dimly lit bar.
Two people sit at a table by a barred window in a stone-walled room, one with a laptop.
Raindrops on a window blur a view of green and brown hills.
A sheep stands by a roadside bus shelter and red postbox on a rainy single-track road.
A woman holds a spotted umbrella by the open door of a Staycation Scotland camper van as her dog waits beside the sea.
A couple look out of a window at camper vans parked along a grassy clifftop.
Washing hangs from the back of a North500 Motorhomes rental van by the sea.
A No Motorhomes 7am to 7pm sign covered in stickers stands against the hills.

MA WEE TIN O’ SHORTBREID

What happens when a country becomes a product?

Growing up in Scotland, a lot of families kept their photographs in an old shortbread tin. Ours did too. The lid usually had a romantic picture of Scotland on it: a castle beside a loch, a stag on a mountainside, a Highland coo and tartan, all of it in sunshine. Ma Wee Tin o’ Shortbreid is Scots for “my little tin of shortbread”. The title started as a warning to myself: don’t make the Highlands look like the lid. Then, at Eilean Donan Castle, about as biscuit-tin as it gets, I photographed a Chinese tourist under a wee umbrella, remaking the view for her own photograph. The warning became the title.

The Scotland on the lid offers wilderness, history, escape and a warm welcome, with a car park nearby. The landscape looks conveniently empty. Some of that emptiness was made. Highland regiments fought the empire’s wars while the glens were cleared for sheep and sporting estates. The view people come for was somebody’s home.

Visitors arrive looking for a Scotland they’ve already seen on screens. They come for wilderness and find a queue, a coach park and a wait for somebody to move out of the frame. At the famous sites, many of the visitors are Chinese and Indian, from countries Britain once ruled, traded with or fought. They photograph the familiar symbols of old Scotland. The former imperial centre is now the destination, Chinese manufacturers sell Western luxury back to us, and the gaze is holding a phone.

Even the weather is for sale. In what felt like London’s hottest summer ever, Londoners drove north for cool air and rain. A week of horizontal rain soon tests the sales pitch.

I’m making the project from my camper van, on repeated trips across the Highlands and Islands: 60 days and 5,000 miles so far, a good part of it stuck behind a motorhome. I’ve been back to Skye five times, crossed to many of the islands and driven the NC500 both ways. It grew out of Weather Permitting, my pictures of Scotland’s ski centres, and kept going.

Reaching the wilderness usually means driving to it, on the same narrow roads as residents, deliveries, coaches and motorhomes. An empty road makes a good advert. Everyone driving down it makes a different picture.

Camper van life has its own pitch: freedom, independence, a new view every morning. In practice, it depends on ferry bookings, fresh water, waste points and somewhere you’re allowed to stop. Freedom, it turns out, needs a booking reference.

Travelling this way, I’m part of what I’m photographing, on the same roads, ferries and overnight stops as everyone else. The open road can still end at a full lay-by or a No Motorhomes sign. Passing places become car parks and viewpoints become campsites.

The Highlands can look almost untouched, but the signs, barriers and gateposts are a visitors’ book, covered in stickers from all over the world. People pass through, leave a little flag behind and disappear.

The NC500 has been a named tourist route for just over a decade. What will it look like in another ten or twenty years? Part of making these photographs is recording this moment, before we find out.

The pictures are about the gap between Scotland as advertised and the place people find. The shortbread tin I was trying not to photograph turned out to be the project. The lid offers a familiar picture. Inside, there were always more pictures.