On Friday I drove up to Kingussie to go to the opening of the Analogue 11 exhibition at the Eleven41 gallery; it is a fair way, but I am glad I went, for if anything, the event exceeded my expectations.

One of the real difficulties with analogue photography in this day and age is that the wet print (silver gelatine, or otherwise), can’t be fully appreciated unless you actually see it, so to speak, in flesh. There is no way around this, but nowadays opportunities to showcase actual photographs are rare-bordering-on-none — photography competitions expect, and are judged on, digital entries, and photography exhibitions are increasingly done as ‘virtual’.

This perhaps makes a degree of sense for the ephemeral insta imagery of the day (though I suspect there is an unescapable correlation between the lack of physical space in which photographs can be seen and the fact that great many professional photographers derive their living from YouTube videos and workshops rather than making actual photographs), but it just doesn’t work for the wet print, for the wet print is far more akin to a two dimensional sculpture than it is to a phone snap shown on a screen.

And so events and places that are dedicated to the art of the physical photograph, and in particular, to the analogue process, need to be appreciate and treasured. So when the Analogue 11 exhibition was brought to my attention by one of the exhibitors Alex Roddie, I wanted to be there.

The exhibition (opened until the 17th of October) presents the work of 11 photographers, mostly associated with The Inverness Darkroom. I had no idea what to expect, but the thing that struck me almost immediately was the breadth of work represented there, from delightful miniatures, to work that some might call surreal, to the classic landscape. What follows are my personal impressions and what for me were the highlights.

The very first exhibits I viewed were a series of small photographs (I think 4”x6” or so) by Elaine Chisholm. One of the hardest things to produce in the darkroom is a bespoke small print, for while on a big print you get away with some degree of imperfection, a small print hides nothing at all, and Elaine’s exhibited work was beautifully done.

Shona Graham-Taylor’s series Blocks captures remnants of WWII sea defences; it is type of landscape photography that I appreciate both because its absence skews our collective portrayal of the Land, but also because it is very hard to do well. Of the three images the last one, capturing a detail of lime seepage from old concrete, could certain hold its own (and I could immediately see how I’d approach printing it myself).

Alex Roddie is at this exhibition the one representative of what I’d call the ‘traditional landscape’, which is, surprisingly hard to do in black and white. Of his series of six images, two stood out for me, rich in structure and texture, and capturing lovely light, the sort of imagery I am naturally drawn to and that would lend itself well to a large print (though I suspect in this case the 35mm negative would the limiting factor to how large).

I was already familiar with the work of Jannette MacDonald on the Lewis monuments from the Island Darkroom, but it was the artist’s sketchbook that is available for browsing that provides a detailed insight into Jannette’s way of working. In it I found an image that truly resonated with me, a double exposure juxtaposing one of the monuments with some written words, which I thought merited a proper print and showcasing on its own.

I rather enjoyed the somewhat surreal work of Monika Thomson, but it was her photograph of a chair in the midst of clear-felling debris that I could really relate to — again it’s the kind of landscape photography we need more of in Scotland, for the clear felling detritus is one of the hallmarks of contemporary Scottish landscape, and this photograph succeeded in capturing this in a compelling way.

But the true highlight of the show for me was the work of Rachel Fermi, a series of split selenium toned prints entitled Twilight Interludes: Romance. The printing was exquisitely executed to a great effect; though much of the work at the exhibition was wet printed, I think this was the only work that was printed on real (aka fibre-based) paper and done all the way to the toning. This represents quite a bit of extra effort, but it makes a huge difference to the result. It’s a level of skill that risks of dying out with the master printers of the old, which would be great shame.

My personal impressions aside, this exhibition as a whole is well worth seeing, and kudos to Ed Smith for making it possible (and I hope it’s not the last such exhibition there). And if you are in the area, or even just passing by along the A9 on the way somewhere else, it is worth dropping in.