Communication Design School of Design
Carla Smith
I’m a photographer and designer drawn to the ways people move through places and leave traces behind — whether that’s footpaths on mountains, stories shared in passing, or the impact of tourism and industry. A lot of my work involves spending time in landscapes that are constantly exposed to change while listening to the people connected to them. Using photography, text, and print to tell those stories, I’m particularly interested in using my practise to inform and change how people interact with our precious Scottish environment — throughout communities, recreationalists and those passing through.
Dùthchas
Dùthchas is a photographic book that explores the relationship between people and the land in Scotland’s mountain regions, with a focus on how Winter tourism and rural industry shape these environments. Centred around the Grampian range, the work traces the visible impact of ski infrastructure, but also looks more quietly at the industries and daily routines that sustain life here—distilleries, transport links, water systems, and small acts of leisure. The book moves through three key areas—Glencoe, Cairngorm, and Glenshee—bringing together photographs and interviews to reflect on how we can live in harmony with Scotland’s fragile, mountainous landscape. The publication is crafted using sustainable materials, ensuring that the internal content reflects the external build. Hand-stitched and casebound by myself.
Encounter
This short experimental film explores a rare encounter with a basking shark off the West Coast of Scotland, reimagined through the tactile process of cyanotype printing. Each frame was hand-printed and scanned to create a moving image that combines analogue technique with digital animation. Edited to the spoken poem ‘Basking Shark’ by Scottish poet Norman MacCaig, the film’s pace is chosen based on the poetry track. Through a combination of digital layering, sound effects and spoken poetry, the film encapsulates the rarity of a Scottish shark encounter, while emphasising the rollercoaster of emotions that came with.
Solitude
This documentary-landscape project focused on photographing the human impact in rural areas, specifically examining desire paths and eroded trails. However, as the project grew larger, I shifted my image making into a more photo essay-based direction, surrounding themes of tourism, access, conservation, industry and economic growth, specifically in areas capitalising from harsh Winter conditions. My image portfolio comprises a range of images that focus on different themes from various locations beyond the highland fault line, specifically the Grampian Range and the towns within. Using the warm winter glow as the motif throughout the collection, brings the images together with room to breathe individually. I feel directly connected to the images I made throughout, which have been driven by my passion for spending time outdoors, specifically across Scotland’s mountainous landscapes.
