An afternoon with Cal Flyn

I met Cal a coupe of years ago, back in the day where social gatherings were an acceptable thing. I vividly reme,ber getting into very interesting debates on the ethics and environmental impact of meat consumption.

One day I learned taht whe was actuially a writer and that she was close to releasing a non fiction book called “Islands of Abandonment”. The brief was simple, she’d written a collection of essays on places that had been negatively and harshly impacted by human activities - think the region around Tchernobyl for example. Sounds pretty cool right? Anyways, I pre-ordered it and received it in January 2021.

Fast forward to this summer, I actually read the book, and I could not have been more surprised by the places Cal went to and described, it was not only a lesson in ecology and how resilient nature is, but also a deep insight into human nature, anthropology and history. I will not spoil the fun and discovery of reading the book, because you should discover it for yourselves, but those places go from a former battlefield, to a lost botanical lab.

Cal’s writing is fascinating, and as I was getting more and more into photography, I thought “maybe we could do a photoshoot”. So there we were strolling the streets of Stromness, looking for those nice viewpoints and natural framing. It was such a fun opportunity, and I hope to do more shoots for inspiring people like Cal in the future.