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Capturing Harris

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Our storytelling takes many forms, both on and offline. Our staff will readily tell you about our work while they serve you coffee in the Canteen or wrap bottles of Isle of Harris Gin in the distillery shop.

Our ambassadors too, have plenty of tales to tell far from our island home here in Tarbert, as they connect with new friends and customers in person at events across the UK.

And in the virtual world, we reach you through these Journals we write each week and the simple and honest stories we share across social media every day, all year round.

With a long history of Outer Hebridean prose, poetry and song, words tend to come easy to us islanders, but the challenge always lies in communicating the true nature of these beautiful islands visually.

So, we’re grateful to work with photographer Laurence Winram whose keen eye and sharp lens have been pointed at our work in Harris since the earliest days of our enterprise.

Regular readers will recognise Laurence’s images of people and places which often accompany our stories, and those who visit our distillery will spot his portraits of distillers hanging on our walls.

This summer, we set Laurence a new challenge, to capture the spirit of the social distillery on video, distilled down to less than a few minutes of evocative moving images.

We want to create a short film which will communicate all that is good about the Isle of Harris, the natural environment, a resilient community and our distillery set at the heart of it all.

Thankfully, he relishes a challenge, and by coincidence his son, 21-year-old Jacob has also inherited his father’s creativity with a camera, making a living as a young film-maker.

So, this week they’ve been exploring our island together with equipment to hand, turning everyday life here in Harris into digital high-definition.

From crofters and kelp-diving to sea kayaks and cattle drives, the Winram boys have been striving to reveal the oft-hidden life of our island, helping us to share it with a wider world.

Our thanks to everyone who took time out of their day to feature in their filming and our sincere thanks also to Laurence and Jacob for all their efforts in capturing Harris. 

As they pack up their gear and head for the editing suite, we look forward to seeing what their hard work will bring later this year.

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