Jamie Stoker’s Loch Ness immediately impressed us. Stoker blends portraits, landscapes with facts and interviews to investigate what draws so many to the shores of Loch Ness. The Loch seems to offer different things to different people. What is clear from those interviewed is they all feel an attachment to the area and the story of the monster, their belief (or lack of) in the mystery seems unimportant in their decision to the make this their home.
‘ The world becomes a far more interesting places when there are exciting question marks in it’
Jamie Stoker
We picked just a few portraits and short snippets of text to give you a taste of the project:
© Jamie Stoker
‘ My name is Dick Raynor. I came here in 1967 as a member of the Loch Ness Investigation Bureau. Back in those days we had teams of volunteers that came for two weeks at a time. They paid for their keep and stayed in caravans at our headquarters by Urquhart castle. Every morning at dawn we drove off in Bedford vans with platforms on the roof and set up 35mm cameras on top ready to film anything that appeared on the surface.’
© Jamie Stoker
‘My name is Adrian Shine, I’m a naturalist, I’ve worked on the Scottish Lochs since 1973 .
There are always going to be people who see Loch Ness monsters, and there are going to be even more that believe in them, because we do not necessarily believe in the things we believe in on the basis of rationality. We believe things on the basis of narrative.
We like stories and this is a good story’
© Jamie Stoker
‘Okay, my name’s Steve Feltham and in 1991 I arrived on the shore of Loch Ness to full time hunt for and try to identify what this mystery is all about.
The backbone of why I still believe in this mystery is mostly I suppose because of the sincerity of the hundreds of people I’ve spoken to over the years who come down here to tell me they’ve seen something very big and very unexplained. Until technology can absolutely prove the mystery right or wrong, I’m content to sit here with my binoculars and camera…’
To read the full interviews and see the rest of Loch Ness head over to Jamie’s website:
http://jamiestoker.com/projects/loch-ness/