New Hope backs Eilidh’s focus on new career

WHEN it comes to planning her future, Taynuilt’s Eilidh Livingstone has got the picture.

The former housekeeper has given hotel work the brush off to focus on making a name for herself as a photographer and the 21-year-old has just opened her first exhibition at New Hope in Oban.

Eilidh dabbled with photography while at Oban High School and has enrolled on an online course, but she is mostly self-taught. Time spent working in an orphanage in Malawi, with the oranges and yellows of the African landscape – so different from her native Highland hills – further inspired her camera work. Her fascination with the natural world continued back home, and she is now building up a collection of photographs and paintings she hopes to exhibit and sell.

She told The Oban Times: ‘I love landscapes. One of my favourite places is Kelly’s Pier near where I live. I’ve got hundreds of photos of it but it looks different every time. It changes with the light and the seasons. I like hillwalking, so there’s always something that catches my eye when I’m out and about.’

Eilidh is now looking for funding opportunities to back her enterprise and is picking up handy tips from her shopkeeper dad Alan who has an outdoors business in Dunoon.

‘I’ve done a few commissions and a couple of photo-shoots for people, so my name is getting out there. I’m so happy New Hope gave me the exhibition space. I’m hoping people will like what they see,’ added Eilidh.