Hirta

About the Book: 

Rising out of the depths of the North Atlantic, the great cathedral-like sea stacks of Stac Lee and Stac an Armin and the jagged outlines of the islands of Hirta, Dùn, Levenish, Borerary and Soay make up one of the most famous groups of islands in the world, the archipelago of St Kilda.
The names we have given to the islands reflect our own impressions of a place which in the minds of many lie far off in the west, 100 miles distant from mainland Scotland, surrounded by the treacherous waters of the North Atlantic. From ‘Britain’s Loneliest Islands’ to the ‘Islands at the Edge of the World’, the archipelago is often considered to be an outlier both physically and culturally from the British Isles, a place where a separate, supposedly more basic existence took place in an environment whose stark natural beauty is matched by its harsh and unforgiving location.

About the Author:

ALEX BOYD was born in Germany in 1984, and grew up in Ayrshire, Scotland. Educated at the University of Glasgow, his work has been widely exhibited, with solo exhibitions at the Scottish Parliament and at prestigious venues such as the Royal Scottish Academy, Royal Ulster Academy and Royal Academy in London.

He is perhaps best known for his series 'Sonnets', a collaboration with the late Makar (Poet Laureate) Edwin Morgan, which shows a faceless figure in the landscape reminiscent of the work of German artist Caspar David Friedrich. In 2012 Boyd was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Art (FRSA). He has worked alongside photographers such as Rankin, and Japanese master Takeshi Shikama. His work is held in several national collections such as the National Gallery of Scotland, The Royal Photographic Society, and The Royal Scottish Academy, as well as private collections across the world.