Dubh Glas - Photography by Douglas Nicholson

Dubh Glas is a photographic body of work by Douglas Nicholson, exploring Scotland through a restrained, monochrome visual language. The images favour tone, texture, and contrast over colour, presenting the landscape in a way that is deliberate and unromantic.

The title Dubh Glas draws from Gaelic - meaning dark, grey-green - and reflects the tonal range that defines the work. These are images shaped by subtlety rather than drama. Light is often minimal. Horizons are understated. Human presence, when it appears at all, is distant and secondary to the land itself.

Rather than presenting Scotland as idealised or picturesque, Dubh Glas embraces ambiguity. Weather is allowed to flatten scenes rather than enhance them. Skies dominate. Detail is found in surface and form rather than spectacle. The work resists easy reading and instead asks the viewer to spend time with it.

There is a quiet confidence running through the project. The photographs do not attempt to impress quickly. They reward patience. In an age of saturated colour and instant imagery, Dubh Glas deliberately slows the exchange between image and viewer.

Monochrome here is not an aesthetic choice for its own sake. It is a way of removing distraction - stripping the scene back to structure, contrast, and mood. What remains feels more elemental and more honest.

Scotland in Frame is proud to present Dubh Glas as part of a growing collection of considered photographic work by Scottish artists. The project reflects a shared belief in restraint, craft, and the value of images that do not rush to explain themselves.

These are photographs that ask the viewer to look harder rather than longer - and to accept that not every landscape needs to be resolved.