Angle of vision

image: Gunnie Moberg
 

 

Gunnie Moberg saw things differently. One reason for that was her angle of vision, taking to the skies when she worked on the Logan Air desk. In 1858 Nadar made aerial photographs of Paris from his specially equipped hot air balloon. More than a century later, Captain Andy Alsop flew the Islander plane while Gunnie made images that showed Orkney in a new way. The low altitude of both balloon and the small plane allowed Nadar and Moberg to make oblique photographs as well as vertical ones. Gunnie’s place in aerial art photography is noted in Scottish Photography: A History (Tom Normand 2007, Luath Press)

image: Gunnie Moberg Stooks, Orkney

image: Gunnie Moberg Churchill Barrier Number Three, Orkney

There had been reconnaissance photographs documenting Orkney to gather military intelligence, beautiful if sinister. Here Gunnie was making art, delighting in shapes, simplifying, gathering a different sort of intelligence.

‘Seeing Orkney from the air was just amazing. For years I did a lot of aerial photography. I loved the patterns of silage cutting in the summer, the many archaeological sites looking like pieces of jewellery far below me, and the low light in winter, which showed up the texture of the landscape and made wonderful long shadows along the dykes and ditches.’

Gunnie Moberg, preface to Orkney, 2006, Birlinn.

image: Gunnie Moberg Maeshowe, Orkney

image: Gunnie Moberg Sheep fort, Skerry, South of Ruskholm

The phrase ‘angle of vision’ is borrowed from the wonderful poem of the same name by Orkney’s Robert Rendall.