William Neal

During the summer, I took a series of photos for William Neal, an artist based out in Wigtown, SW Scotland. For many years he’s painted landscapes of Galloway, but more recently he’s moved into creating large abstract artworks, full of light, texture and colour, but completely flat and smooth.

He was after some updated portraits and new images of his studio, so I was out there last week clicking away.

Part of his fascinating and varied background includes his association with prog-rock giants, Emerson Lake and Palmer, for whom he created the album covers for 'Tarkus' and 'Pictures at an Exhibition'

As we were coming towards the end of the session he mentioned an idea he’d had for a while about having a photo of him sitting outside at his easel, looking like a typical landscape artist, yet having one of his abstract works in front of him. That sounded like too much fun to miss, so we loaded bits and pieces into his car and went down to the harbour. We may have run well over time, but he did make me some rather nice sandwiches for lunch.

Following his direction with regard to colouring and the addition of a full moon he decided to use this image on the front page of his website:



However, to accompany his latest exhibition, Sylvan Droplet Variation, he also created a CD of music with musician Neil Williams. The Artist's photo he decided to use on the sleeve insert was one I took during the shoot of him holding his cat.



I have lot of fun taking photos, and I have just as much fun editing and playing with them in Photoshop. But the best aspect of this job is meeting people and finding out more about their lives, their passions and their world views.

Photos in DG Life Magazine

“Have you seen the photos yet?” asked Jools when we bumped into her on the street on the way back from collecting Meg’s new glasses from the optician.

“What photos?” Then I remembered. “Have they been published?”

“October’s edition of DG Life. They look good. Better go and get yourself a copy.”

Her voice faded into the distance as I grabbed Meg’s hand and charged off in the direction of the nearest newsagent.

DG Life… DG Life… DG life… “Found it!” said Meg.

And there they were, on page 66 of the October edition



Dumfries and Galloway Life did an article on The Orchard and Wild Harvest Project run by South West Community Woodlands Trust. The project itself is about planting wild fruit and nut trees wherever possible – along cycle and walking routes, school grounds and anywhere else that seems like a possibility (click on the image above for a full sized photo where you can actually read the article if you want).

South West Community Woodlands Trust is based in SW Scotland. Earlier in the year I helped design and build their website, and trained one of the members in how to maintain and update it – see swcwt.org

Jools Cox, who runs SWCWT asked if I would take some photos of children planting trees for the article she knew was being written, promising I would get full credit for any images used. I’d taken scores of images, then whittled them down to the best dozen or so, which I then edited and tidied up before putting them on a disc her. In the end they used 3 of them.

With all that’s been ongoing of late, I’d pretty much forgotten all about it. So it was wonderful to see the all-important, “Photography by Kim Ayres” sitting right there on the page.



They'd even spelled my name right.