Image: Gunnie Moberg Hoy High Lighthouse & St Magnus Church Egilsay. Date unknown
It’s out with the old and in with the new as we welcome in 2014. Here in this intriguing image from the Gunnie Moberg Archive both old and new(ish) co-exist in an inter-island architectural double take across space and time. The 12th century St Magnus Kirk on the island of Egilsay stands alongside the 19th century Hoy High lighthouse in the island of Graemsay. The towers seem to stand at the same height, dismissing the fifty-odd foot difference between them, never mind the sea miles between these two Orkney islands.
Did Gunnie Moberg, who made double exposure images in her garden at Don, intend this coming together or was it a happenchance. In the slide collection are other images of St Magnus Kirk with the same small red plane (you can see it on the right hand side balancing the image) circling the church. Maybe that points to it being serendipity but the composition – it’s so perfect, and the matched content of two towers – it’s so unlikely. Fortune and the artist must have smiled.
Gunnie’s garden double takes, part of her later work, are far from accident. Here Gunnie worked repeatedly to get the correct exposure and composition, making notes and calculations. Working some magic none the less, guessing, only able to assess the results after the film is processed.
Image: Gunnie Moberg Papaver somniferum. Edition of four.
The Gunnie Moberg Archive 
Wow! The small red plane is of course an Islander (such as Gunnie flew in and photographed from many times) in the old red, white and black Loganair livery.