2023 marked the 25 year anniversary of the automation of Scotland’s lighthouses. My grandfather, Bill Gault, was the very last of the Scottish Lighthouse keepers - turning off the light at Fair Isle South Lighthouse in 1998 - and is part of a small group of remaining lighthouse keepers living today.
Through this portrait and documentary photography project, I aim to connect with family, namely my grandfather, through complementary interests, while researching and depicting tradition and culture through the process of domestic (re)discovery. The project will focus on capturing portraits of the former keepers and any immediate family, as I travel to the keepers’ homes and their old lighthouse stations to document them, their surroundings, their experience and memory of an extinct practice and distinct way of life, and find some echoes of the past in structures and stories.
*Project ongoing*














