Framing Nature

Quick-Fire Q&A with Rebecca Marr

Join us as Rebecca Marr, photographer of When The Grass Dances, takes part in our series of quick-fire Q&As!

What is a quick-fire Q&A?

We have our interviewee pick a number at random and we ask them the general question listed next to it.

Shortly after we switch to asking book-specific questions, to give you a brief insight into our wonderful writers and their books.

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What attracted you to photography in the first place?

Well, I was given a camera by my grandfather, which I still use today and used all through college; that was a small format camera. I was also given a medium format camera that belonged to my great uncle, and I still use that today.

I've always been interested in photography. I was very fortunate at secondary school to have an art teacher who really encouraged me in my photography and let me use the darkroom over lunch time. Then I set up a dark room in my own bedroom when I was a teenager.

What inspired you to start working on books?

I like the format of working in photo books. I've always enjoyed photo books. I like the constraint of a book. And the very themed approach. I really like that. I used to like making up little books of photographs, just sticking them in. I like the way one photograph on one page speaks to another on the other page.

If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?

Right here. I love where I am, I love living in Orkney and I love living in the town of Stromness. Last night I went out to the beach to drink some wine with Mark, my husband, and it I just thought I am so fortunate to live here. So right where I am.

What is your favourite thing about being a photographer?

I like to see the world through a very small window. It really helps me concentrate. I like being able to block out everything else that's going on outside and concentrate on what I'm seeing through the camera. I do use my phone to take pictures, but what I find frustrating is that if you're holding the phone up in front of you, you can still see the rest of the world around you. Whereas, if you've got a camera right up to your eye and you're using a viewfinder, then you are just working within this frame, and you curate what you're seeing by moving this frame around.

If you could spend the day and anybody else's shoes, whose would it be?

That might be the photographer, Anna Atkins. She was believed to be the first woman photographer. She produced the first ever photographic book. It was a book about seaweeds, a subject that's also close to my heart. She produced this book using cyanotype, the process where you lay the subject, in this case seaweed, down on photosensitive paper and create an image.

She produced these amazing books. There are several of them. They're in various libraries. I think it would have been so exciting to be the first person, let alone the first woman, to create a photographic book. She wasn't only the first woman to create a photographic book. She was the first person ever to do that.

What job would you be terrible at?

A job that I had to do every day. I'm much better at freelancing. I do lots of different things. On any given day, I might be doing a couple of jobs. I think if I had to be doing the same thing with the same people every day, I might be terrible at that.

What is the main message you would like people to take from this book?

There are a few messages in this book. I would take one of Val’s poems as the message, which is that 'healing is always possible'.

What is something people would not know about this book just by reading it?

That there is a lot behind every photograph and a lot behind every poem. There's a lot of work that's not in the book that was required to go through before we could arrive at the book. So, people might not know that there were six years behind making this book. Six years of studying grasses, of Val and me working together and sharing and communicating our ideas backwards and forwards.

Why did you choose the title that you did?

We wanted the feeling of movement in things, and we wanted the grasses to be alive.  We wanted to feel that they had their own momentum.

What is your favourite poem and/or photograph from the book?

My favourite part changes. But today, my favourite part, and my favourite poem, is Silver Hair-grass.

Let me find it so I remember it correctly. Yeah. So here we go. Okay. It's called silver hair grass. The last line has really stuck with me.

Ready to move on,
the grasses walk alongside.

It just feels very comforting. It feels like companionship. It's funny for me at the moment because I've got the exhibition at the Art centre in Stormness, and Val's not here yet, so she hasn't seen the exhibition. However, I feel like she's very present, but she's not physically here. This idea of walking alongside can mean to you in many ways.

However, my favourite poem and photograph combination at the moment is Star Sedge.

Star Sedge
Carex echinata

I am the tiny star sedge
looking to the sky above my head

I’m growing, spreading star-wise
closely linked to starry skies

And I really liked the picture that goes with it because I couldn't find that sedge for ages and had to ask John Crossley, botanist (our consultant on this project), where it was. Then I kept going back to it. But last night, Val and I were asked to give a few photographs and poems for a guest blog, and she was on the phone, and I opened the book. This was the exact page I opened up to, and at the same time, Val suggested, ‘How about Star Sedge? I don’t have the book in front of me.’ As I said, ‘It's fine because you're using my eyes because I'm looking at it right now.’ It was just a lovely movement. 

What emotional reaction do you expect people to have to the book?

I hope that people feel like they can slow down and that they realise they can find nature wherever they are. I hope the emotion that people feel is a connectedness to the world around us. Sometimes we talk about nature as if it's something other than us, but we are part of that.

Also, that is possible for them to have a relationship with things other than actual human people.