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I was born in the town of Celle in Northern Germany in 1984.
I first moved to the UK in 1989
My parents had just seperated and I came to live with my Scottish father in the country.
My earliest memories of Scotland, are of my first journey to the country.
Passing Loch Lomond in the middle of the night,
and the moonlight on the loch.
That may sound romantic, but those are my earliest impressions.
Artists that inspire me and my imagination are people like Caspar David Friedrich
the German Romantic artist.
My earliest memories in Scotland actually relate to Friedrich.
I was given a book of German poetry which had one of his paintings on the cover.
I was always looking south to Germany
and the link to my imagined home.
and my own roots.
Friedrichs work... much of it is of Northern Germany
where my family lived, and still live.
and these paintings of these lone figures
staring out across the Baltic, or the North Sea
towards the UK or to the north
is something that has always fascinated me.
I always wanted to work that into my own photography.
The Sonnets series began in 2007 when I was working on a short film.
It was actually the final shot of that film
when Henning walked out into the water and stood there in the loch
Ideas that had been in my mind for years all came together in that one moment.
We have a landscape and we have a figure.
That figure wears a costume of black braces, a white shirt and black trousers
of black braces, a white shirt and black trousers
these are recognisable
To have that consistency through the shots is something that I wanted to maintain.
It's a timeless look within a timeless landscape.
One of my favourite photographers Bill Brandt did some work here.
Although taken many years ago, that work still draws me with stark, dramatic landscapes, and I always wanted to come to the places he worked.
I'm drawn to Skye for various reasons.
Not just the dramatic landscapes of the Cuillin mountain range and Elgol,
the large beaches and the moorland...
it has everything a photographer could really want.
When I get to a location I already have an idea in mind
I sort of brood over images.
l explain to Henning quite some time in advance what I'm looking for.
Henning is a friend and being my friend
must requires a lot of patience.
Because I've known him since I came to this country
we have 20 years or so of him understanding
where I'm coming from.
Because we do have that almost unspoken bond
He will trust me to the extent that
he will stand there for 20 minutes
or he will be happy to stand in a loch,
he will be happy to freeze.
I can push him further than a model would go
He's never complained, he's always been interested in the shot
and to me that's much further than anyone else would go.
I've wanted to shoot the Quirang for many years.
To have Henning there to draw that scale in
It's not something I've seen in many images taken there before.