Pigeons, Klondykers and Tweed!

Pigeons, Klondykers and Tweed, sounds like the start to a joke when they walk into a bar. But no, we’re pleased to have on the shop today three new zines of black and white social documentary photography work from Scotland in the early 1990’s.

These three add to the three Clydebuilt zines of January, and start building the series of publications of my work.

Auction of racing pigeons, in Kilwinning, Scotland, 12th January 1991. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2025.

Pigeon Auctions 1991 - These photographs were taken in January 1991, in Beith and Kilwinning, are from the very early stages of my career, and document two auctions of racing homing pigeons in Ayrshire. This is the first time this work has ever been published or seen, having sat quietly in the negative binder folder for all these years. Not unloved, but certainly unedited and neither published nor exhibited. I’m delighted to bring these images back to life, and with a forward to the zine by fellow Ayrshire-man and acclaimed author Andrew O’Hagan. Andrew and I first did a job together for Channel4 about 30-something years ago, and very kindly he’s written a few words for me about these photographs.

Donald Smith (Noe) in the Yarn Store at Kenneth Macleod, Shawbost Ltd, for story about the Harris Tweed industry, Scotland, 1992. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 2025.

Harris Tweed, 1992 - Back in 1992 I was already photographing regularly for a Scottish Sunday newspaper and its supplement magazines, beginning to roam the country, to see places, and to photograph stories for them such as this. I travelled to the Outer Hebrides, my first time there, with writer Euan Ferguson (who sadly is no longer with us). I did a few jobs with Euan and we always had fun. On this occasion we were sent to take a look at the then challenges facing the Harris Tweed industry, and the trip resulted in an article in the client magazine across four pages, I still have the magazine. But I always felt that the image selection and usage in the magazine for that article was very uninspired, and they only used 3 or 4 pictures. So with pleasure, I’m publishing a wider set of images for this zine, including photographs of weavers working with the wools and tweeds at home, and some images from the larger mills in Stornoway and Shawbost. It’s always good to bring photographs back to life, give them new audiences.

A crewman from an East European klondyker fish factory ship heads ashore for the day, off of Shetland Isles, Scotland, 1994. ©Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert 1994.

Klondykers, Shetland 1994 - I loved photographing this story. I remember back in the early 1990’s reading and hearing stories of the East European fish factory ships which would come to Shetland’s waters to buy up catches of mackerel and herring, and package up the fish to take them back to the new countries of Eastern Europe in the early post-Communist years. I first got sent to go photograph these ships by national daily broadsheet, but it was a brief trip, and I wanted more, I pitched the idea to The Independent Saturday magazine picture editor Colin Jacobson, who kindly commissioned me and I returned to Shetland. But for some reason they never published the images and story, and I sold the set of images to the Independent on Sunday Review section, with picture editors Victoria Lukens and Susan Glen. They used the images well. I was lucky to get out onto some Klondyker ships, sampling their vodka and raw herring, having a look round these old ships. I chatted in my basic Romanian with a Doctor aboard one ship, you can see him in the zine playing an accordion on deck. I greatly enjoyed these assignments, and renowned journalist Tom Morton, of Shetland, has very kindly written for the zine and explains that in my photographs I caught the final throws of the klondyke, and it soon all came to a halt as better, newer Norwegian ships went further and deeper for the fish, and the rust-bucket Klondykers were seen no more.

Please have a look, see if any images catch you eye. There are also some copies available of Clydebuilt, with photography of shipbuilding and ship launches from yards on Glasgow’s River Clyde.

Many thanks for reading,

Jeremy