Ellie Duncan has always been inexorably drawn to the sea. Drawn to the way that the light works through the waves, or the way the water creates ephemeral shapes on the sand. Growing up in Gulberwick, just south of Lerwick, she would sit by the sea most days after school. “To me, it’s always been like a very accepting friend,” she says. “It’s really all I think about and see, this peaceful thing in a crazy world. When I’m away from the sea, I don’t feel like myself. I need it.”
The sea has always been like a very accepting friend… this peaceful thing in a crazy world.
She started taking pictures as a young teenager, having been obsessed by the accordion cameras that belonged to her great grandfather, a photographer for The Herald, and inspired by her cousin Joy Allan, who posts epic photos of Shetland seas and skies on Instagram as Islander Joy.
“Photography was just in me somehow,” says Ellie. “I’ve always been drawn to little details. Initially, it was flowers in the garden, but over time it became the sea. Sitting and looking, and freezing my hands on stormy winter days, trying to learn how to capture this thing.”
Now, as well as working at a daycare nursery, she’s also started to capture her favourite subject in the form ceramic bowls, plates and mugs, all in the same duotone of sand and greyish blue. Like her photographs, they’re objects of muted simplicity, created with a rare purity of expression. Here, she explains some of the ideas behind her work.
