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Scotland's changing landscape

Anne McNaught | 12:41 UK time, Friday, 5 November 2010

Scotland's Landscape producer Derek Farrell wants your photos - of landscapes past and present ...


When you get to my age, and nothing ages you more than using that phrase, you start to take a look at your history, your heritage, where you fit in the world. Some people start on their family tree - as producer of the Scotland's Landscape website, I get to look into the whole nation's trees ... not to mention coasts, lochs and mountains.

Scotland's Landscape is a theme running across television, radio and online at ´óÏó´«Ã½ Scotland this year. Through Making Scotland's Landscape on ´óÏó´«Ã½1 and Walking through Landscape on Radio Scotland, looks at how human activity has shaped the nation.

Through the themes of Trees, the Land, the Sea, Water and Weather, he explores the ways we have plundered, managed or preserved the country's resources in the interests of survival, development, industry, leisure and wealth.

The human element is kept right at the heart of the matter, with physical changes and social changes entwined and constantly affecting each other. Directly or indirectly, our actions change the world we live in. In turn, this changing world changes us.

The main focus for Scotland's Landscape online is our rephotography campaign, which aims to capture some of these changes. I'm in the enviable position of choosing photos for the site. When I started out I had no idea of the wealth of photos out there, in national collections as well as local archives in libraries and museums all round the country.

Burntisland as it was ...

Modernday view of a golf course

... and how the same landscape looks today.

Just as there are few parts of the country that have not been altered by man, there aren't many that haven't been photographed either. When original and new images of the same location are combined they give a fascinating insight into how places across the nation have changed: abandoned industry reclaimed by nature, a once-thriving fishing harbour standing empty, a sea of wind turbines flooding moorland . These snapshots don't just reflect how we have altered the landscapes we live in - they hint at changes in how we live our lives too. And when you come across an image of somewhere you know, in my case suburban Giffnock, it's like uncovering a little piece of your own history. At which point, I could say, "I remember when all this was fields", but then, I'm not that old.

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