Behind the Lens with Robert Andrew

For just over ten years, I’ve lived and worked all over the Scottish mountains with a small close-knit team of men and women who toil their hearts out to construct, maintain, and improve a network of safe upland routes for all who enjoy the wilderness of the Scottish landscape. I’m a trained photographer, among other things. My first photograph of these characters was made shortly after being handed a pair of gloves on a cold morning in February 2012 on a snow-covered field in Balmaha, Stirlingshire, with the task of bagging 180 tonnes of quarried rock for the path rebuild on Conic Hill. In pursuit of these photographs, I stick to using an analogue 6 x 6cm Hasselblad camera – a system that has neither electronics nor batteries to succumb to the cold, wet, harsh environments of the mountain altitudes.

In many ways it has been a very rewarding experience. Learning the craft of upland path construction has afforded an excellent opportunity to build up an extensive archive of photographic material that, I hope, will offer viewers a unique insight into a little-known occupation, considered to be one of the most physically demanding out there. The photographs I’ve made are inseparably threefold in genre - landscape, portrait, and documentary. A 1st place award I received from the 2020 Scottish Portrait Awards may be some testament to the interesting portraiture aspect of these photographs.