This year, professional photographer Angus Mackintosh was commissioned to work alongside surveyors from the Ness Archaeological Landscape Survey, part of the Dùn Èistean Archaeology Project: www.duneistean.org which has been going on in Ness for the last 3 years, to capture images of the archaeological work in progress and the sites that were being recorded.
Other aspects of life in Ness were also photographed: the people, the artefacts and the landscape. From the hundreds of pictures taken, Angus chose twenty images that show the relationship between the past and present in Ness today.
Also on display are a set of aerial photographs taken by the RAF in 1946, which give an historical context to the Ness landscape from a time when settlement patterns were changing in each township. Artefacts discovered during the survey work are also on display, as well as some of the ‘tools of the trade’, which allow you to see how the archaeologists interpret the finds that they discover. The exhibition aims to put the archaeological remains into a modern context, showing that they are not distant and forgotten, but form part of a landscape that has been inhabited and bustling with life throughout the millennia.
For a preview of the images you can go to his website: www.angusmackintosh.com
The commission has been supported by Highland 2007, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar and Western Isles Enterprise.