FARMER’S daughter, Caroline McQuistin, is one of the stars of the show in an arts display in Gatehouse-of-Fleet.

Caroline McQuistin, who was brought up near to New Luce, in rural Wigtownshire, by her parents, Neale and Janet, has made a name for herself locally and further afield with her evocative pictures capturing everyday life in rural Scotland.

When she left home for university four years ago, she never imagined that she would find herself back on her parents’ farm creating her first major body of work.

It was only after spending time away from home that she discovered that rural life and remote places were the source of much of her artistic inspiration.

When given a brief by her course lecturer that was to be centred on the theme ‘Good with their hands’, Caroline created a photo story about her father, Neale.

She told The Scottish Farmer that while doing this, she discovered a new-found fascination with that lifestyle and the remoteness of the farm where she had grown up.

“The close relationship between absolutely everything on the farm has only now become apparent to me,” said Caroline. “When I was growing up, I was too busy trying to see what was going on in the wider world to appreciate what was happening right under my nose.

“The small community that I grew up in – my mum and dad, the farm animals, the land and the changing seasons – are all great subjects that I have found again.”

Using skills taught at university, she has had a rewarding experience capturing that rural landscape with her camera.

Since that early course work, she has gone on to explore other areas that are even more remote. In recent times, she explored the Knoydart peninsula, having heard about the rugged beauty of the place from her father who had fished and bought cattle there.

She is now convinced that it’s not enough for a photographer to get to know the people in a small and isolated community – they have to get to know and trust the photographer too, before the real story can be captured.

Studying her parents’ lives back on the farm gave her a head start in building up that all important relationship with a subject.

This allowed her to concentrate on honing her skills with her camera.

She has tried to adopt a pragmatic approach in representing the people and places and her images focus heavily on the changes in population, as well as the history and politics unique to each area.

She’s also been to stay on Rathlin Island, off the Co Antrim coast, on three occasions now, and she said: “Rathlin is a fascinating place. It’s the only island off the coast of Northern Ireland which is inhabited and it has a rich history of a steady decline in population over hundreds of years.

“But, that’s all changed in recent times. The decline has stopped and has started to increase and it is a very exciting stage in Rathlin’s history – I have really enjoyed the challenge of trying to capture some of what is going on there at the moment.”

Caroline’s work over the past year has been curated into an exhibition: ‘The middle of somewhere’, which has been included in one of Scotland’s premier art and craft open studio events – ‘Spring fling’ – which runs until June 25, 2017.

Dumfries and Galloway has hosted the event for 15 years and Caroline was thrilled to have been part of it this year.

But, she’s non-stop now – America is the next stop for he and her camera as she’s off to teach photography to American youngsters at a summer camp.

When that’s over, she intends to knock on doors across America in search of commissioned work – with the evident enthusiasm for her work, she should make a big impression on the other side of the Atlantic as well!