Morag Perkins
LightNews LightNews
banner
moragperkinsphoto.com
Morag Perkins
@moragperkinsphoto.com
1.8K followers 900 following 1.7K posts
Photographer, mostly film, mostly plants. Looking straight into the light with the lens wide open.

Also occasionally touching on disability, MECFS, and rare types of diabetes (specifically MODY)

She/her

Glasgow, Scotland

www.moragperkinsphoto.com
Posts Replies Media Videos
moragperkinsphoto.com
Today's lookbook:
Close up photograph of a slightly deranged looking highland cow, peering through a metal gate with one wild staring eye.
November 19, 2025 at 5:36 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
My letterpress Christmas cards from @loreandordure.com have arrived and they're fabulous!

There are proper old-school hand printed with letter blocks and a press, follow Kate for behind the scenes process

...and if you want some you can buy them here: ko-fi.com/s/1af2e209ad
A pack of letterpress Christmas cards, still in the packaging, propped up on a white-painted bookshelf with fairly lights strewn around. The cards are on red kraft paper, with text in black and white. The text is part of the song "The Twelve Days of Christmas", and the phrase "Seven swans a-swimming" has been highlighted in larger white text. There are decorative highlights of snowflakes in silver.
November 8, 2025 at 5:16 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Welp, this is new!

Every so often I spend my accumulate Boots points to get 'free' film. Arrived like this, complete with security tag.

Visions of some shifty bloke going round the pubs offering rolls of XP2 that fell off a shelf in Boots.
Box of Ilford XP2 35mm film. The top side of the box has a shop security tag stuck to it - is is a long black rectangular strip with "Security Protected" written on it in white and a sort of alarm symbol.
November 4, 2025 at 4:42 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
NGL it's not even the first time I've attempted such shenanigans.

The lab are going to blacklist me aren't they?

Anyway this was Cinestill 800T, a Canon EOS 300 and an obliging dentist friend. Covid made us all do weird things 🤷‍♀️

[TW: Dentist things. Labelled graphic but it isn't really, no gore]
Patients-eye view of the light over a dentist's chair. It is a white structure overhead on an articulated arm, with an arrangement of six bright white lights in the centre. It looks a bit like an alien looming above, definitely mildly threatening. The photograph is taken on Cinestill 800T, so there is a bit of red halation around some of the highlights. Patients-eye view at the dentist - taken from lying back in the chair, with a dentist looming above, taking up about half the frame. He is wearing a double layer of face masks, a visor and a bandana so only his eyes are clearly visible, looking down the lens. Behind him the same light from the previous photo can be seen, out of focus.
October 15, 2025 at 7:41 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Good article here about Diane Keaton‘s photography, I had no idea!

Also this quote is #goals. If somebody writes this about you after your death then you are doing it right

www.theguardian.com/artanddesign...
Extract from the linked article: “In an essay for New York Review of Books, Larry McMurtry once described his first meeting with Keaton: "I found her, one morning, sitting in the flower bed outside the Madison Hotel in Washington DC. She was rummaging in a bag big enough to hold a caribou, which contained a camera heavy enough to stun the caribou with, should that be necessary."
October 15, 2025 at 6:29 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
It cost me every scrap of capacity I have, and today I am fully unable to leave the hotel room, but we made the trip to see Sigur Rós at the Royal Albert Hall

100% worth it and I don’t regret a thing 🥹

Out of body experience - I think I left a piece my soul on the ceiling of the Albert Hall
Photograph taken at the end of the Sigur Rós gig with the London Contemporary Orchestra at the Royal Albert Hall, 30th September 2025. The photograph is taken from the back of the stalls, off to one side. The audience is in darkness, and the stage is brightly lit by a number of strong spotlights, casting bright diagonal lines through the darkness. On stage the band and the conductor are stood at the front wearing all black. They are facing back to applaud the orchestra and the organist. There is a children’s choir behind the orchestra, and the organ is lit up. The organist is Anna Lapwood, just visible in a sparkly jacket.
October 1, 2025 at 6:07 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Bluesky, I have left the house and gone on an Adventure!

Whoosh…✈️

We are in London this week
Selfie taken on an aeroplane, sitting in a window seat. I have a face mask and a sunflower lanyard, indicating that I have a hidden disability. I am a white woman with shoulder length wavy mid brown hair and glasses, and I am wearing a purple cord jacket with a decorative scarf in autumnal colours. The classic photograph looking out over the wing of an aeroplane in the air. The wing in this case is mostly neutral greys and whites, the only colour coming from little flashes of bright red at the tips of the fairings and a couple of small yellow fittings. The sky is a gradient of hazy cloud below, fading gradually to blue at the top. Photograph looking across the interior of an aeroplane in flight to the window opposite. The window is a bright oval in the centre upper third of the frame, and the tops of brightly lit fluffy clouds can be seen outside. The rest of the frame is in darkness, with just a few details picked out by the light from the window. The backs of a row of seats in front of the window can be made out, and a man wearing glasses is sitting in the window seat, reading a book. Photograph of part of the wing of an aeroplane in flight, taken from the window immediately above the trailing edge of the wing. Only a small section of wing where it joins the fuselage can be seen, and a corner of an engine. Sweeping across the wing is a clear narrow ‘swoosh’ of some sort of cloud-like condensation, showing clearly how the air flows past the engine and over the wing. At the back end of the trail as the condensation dissipates spiral like patterns can be seen. In the distance are white fluffy clouds, fading into blue sky above, with a few wispy contrails from other aircraft.
October 1, 2025 at 5:50 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Caught Feathers McGraw attempting to break into the Kibble Palace earlier
Photograph taken from inside a Victorian glasshouse in a park. The windows are steamed up, obscuring the view outside the glass. Perched on the outside frame of the glass is a large woodpigeon, details slightly fuzzy from the condensation. The bird has turned to look directly in, giving it a shape and appearance exactly like villainous penguin Feathers McGraw from the Wallace & Gromit animations
September 23, 2025 at 5:01 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Anyway, what prompted me to post about this today was Kristie's absolutely masterful response to a review in the Scotsman, highlighting the way marginalised writers are talked over and their experiences dismissed in literary criticism.

Don't think yer man was expecting a 2500 word rebuttal 😆
Extract from Kristie's Substack post: "To lift two lines from late in the book and hold them up as the measure isn't literary criticism. If we're playing lucky dip with sentences, let's position "Caithness is flat and vast and lies prostrate to a wind pushed inland by the thuggish North Sea" or "PETITE BRUNETTE GIVES AWESOME HANDJOB" as definitive. Absurd, obviously. Each is real, each is mine, but none stands as representative without the frame that holds it. My guess as to why this line was chosen as the litmus test is that it names identity, which is so often read as self-indulgent, performative, even didactic. Perhaps the politics of identity only feel frivolous if yours have never worked against you."
September 14, 2025 at 2:13 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
I am delighted to say I have read it (A book! A whole one! That is a big deal for me) and found it both fascinating and eye opening - especially reading about the experiences of a woman around my own age growing up mixed race in Scotland.

Go read it, it will teach you things.
Hardback copy of "Drystone: A Life Rebuilt" by Kristie De Garis, held up in my hand. The cover is white, with five stylised stones arranged in the centre. They are highlighted in different shades of blue, yellow, pink and green. "DRYSTONE" appears at the top in bold black text, with the author's name at the bottom. The subtitle "A LIFE REBUILT" appears in white text on the stones.
September 14, 2025 at 1:59 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
The cognitive effects of ME mean that I don't generally read books (this surprises people as I definitely give off a "bookish" vibe!) but when your internet pal @kristiedegaris.bsky.social writes one it's time to make an exception so I sent my representative down to a Real Bookshop to buy me a copy🧵
Hardback copy of the book "Drystone: A Life Rebuilt" by Kristie De Garis, seen on the shelf in a bookshop. It is turned with the cover facing outwards, occupying a prominent space on the shelf. Most of the other books on the shelf have the spine facing out and are less immediately obvious.
September 14, 2025 at 1:48 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
OK I know I you all enjoy a little frisson from a 9V battery but have you heard about old disposable cameras with a flash?

Those are *spicy*. Dodgy websites tell you how to make tasers out of them spicy. DO NOT LICK.

I have some here that I am too feart to dismantle to harvest the film
An old disposable 35mm film camera of the sort people might hand out at weddings. It is still in the packaging and has a flash. The cardboard outer sleeve is white with little hearts on it. Do not be deceived by the little hearts, it will definitely try to kill you if you dismantle it.
July 26, 2025 at 3:34 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Took Anson out for a test roll today.

Certain frames are Obligatory - I don’t make the rules*!

(* I did make the rule)

#BelieveInFilm
Olympus OM2n camera held up in front of a marble statue inside a glasshouse. The camera is a very classic looking 35mm film SLR with a silver and black body. The statue shows a sad looking seated man, with a small monkey sitting on his knee. The monkey also looks sad. Outside the glasshouses trees and park benches are visible.
July 21, 2025 at 5:14 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Not my cats, but these two beauties rule the neighbourhood
Photograph of two cats in a suburban back garden. One is a tabby with a white belly and white paws, sitting neatly upright and facing the camera. He is tolerating the other cat, a very beautiful cream-coloured ragdoll with a brown face and tail. She is sitting with her back to the camera and turning to look at the tabby. She seems to have a bit of a crush on him. Between the two cats in a row of daffodils in bloom. Somehow the cats seem to have arranged themselves in a very pleasing composition, like they are posing for a classical painting.
July 18, 2025 at 11:59 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
New camera, who dis?

#BelieveInFilm
Olympus OM2n camera It is a very classic looking 35mm film SLR, with a silver and black body
July 18, 2025 at 8:00 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Question for the #BelieveInFilm crowd - especially Olympus OM fans!

Still using my OM1n daily for my ongoing project but mirror is starting to get a little sticky so I'm in the market for a second OM body. Then I'll always have one working and they can share lenses.

Question is - which one to buy?
Two vintage Olympus OM 35mm film cameras next to each other. One is a black OM1n, the older of the two models but also more upmarket. It is an all manual camera capable of working without batteries. The other is a silver OMG, a consumer grade model that is (relatively!) more recent and has more electronics and auto modes. It is slightly beaten-up looking.
July 12, 2025 at 1:34 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
This little camera has superpowers - and I've yet to find a "no cameras with interchangeable lenses" rule it couldn't sneak right past because it unless you are In The Know it just looks like a toy.

Also Lomography Orca black & white 110 film is surprisingly good - this is it pushed 2 stops.
Pentax Auto 110 camera, hanging from the end of a lanyard. It has the shape and look of a classic SLR camera, but it is tiny and perfectly proportioned on the end of a lanyard. It looks like a miniature model or a toy.
May 16, 2025 at 2:15 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
I haven't posted any photos in ages so here's some from the time when we were all scattered in the online wilderness - inspired by @behindthebluemotel.com's newfound enthusiasm for the tiny but glorious Pentax Auto 110.

Sigur Rós at the Armadillo in Glasgow, November 2022

#BelieveInFilm
Grainy low-res black and white photograph, taken from a high vantage point at a gig. Three band members can be seen, silhouetted by bright lights behind them. There is a large screen in the background, showing something that looks like fireworks or showers of sparks. The stage lights all have very strong halation effects, each with a clear 'halo' around it. The contrast is very strong, with deep blacks and bright whites and very little in between. Another photograph in the same style, from the same gig. This time the lights appear slightly more hazy and the band are harder to make out. On the screen behind them a large face looms - only the midsection is visible, with eyes in deep shadow like the figure is hooded. A third photograph in the same style, from the same gig. This time the band are more clearly visible, with the lead singer standing at the front of the stage with his head bowed. Once again the stage lights have very strong halations, but they are more haphazardly scattered and some have a more foggy glow. Sparks appear to shower down from the large screen above.
May 16, 2025 at 2:15 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Also I might have got the eensiest bit carried away with my Etsy shopping!

Can't quite put my finger on it but I think there's some sort of theme emerging 🤔
Pair of black fabric Converse shoes with black and white accents, and brightly coloured shoelaces. The laces are a gradient of vivid colour, starting from deep indigo in the middle at the front of the shoe and progressing through a whole rainbow of colour to reddish pink at the ends. The colours make a pleasing contrast with the stark black and white of the shoes. Close up detail of a small enamel trans flag pin with the word ALLY written on it in large silvery-white block text. It is shown on the lapel of a navy blue tweed jacket, on a wooden hanger. The decorative lining of the jacket is just visible, with printed lining fabric and hot pink accents.
May 15, 2025 at 5:10 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
Life and fatigue mean I haven’t been posting much photography recently but you should know my project is still rolling on and I’m still adding a frame every single day!

Just bought Oly a new wrist strap and he is now 50% more *fabulous* 🌈

#BelieveInFilm
Black Olympus OM1n camera, with a woven paracord wrist strap. The wrist strap is mostly black, but with an extra piece of rainbow gradient cord woven into it, creating accents of bright rainbow colours along the length.
May 15, 2025 at 12:19 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
WAIT

I have the opportunity to do something even funnier...

I think you mean AP-*yes*
Canon EOS IX camera body. It is a Canon EF mount SLR that uses APS film
April 19, 2025 at 5:26 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
So now if you Google "Type 5 diabetes" it automagically supplies you with information from Wikipedia about MODY 5 / HNF1B MODY instead of the new - totally unrelated - type that is caused my malnutrition.

News articles are already emerging conflating the two...
Screenshot of a google search for "Type 5 diabetes" On the right of the screen is a breakout box giving details from the Wikipedia page for MODY 5 / HNF1B MODY / Renal cysts and diabetes syndrome. This is not type 5 diabetes. On the left is the summary of an article in the Independent about the newly-recognised type 5 diabetes which incorrectly describes it as "a rare, inherited form of the disease that develops in the early teens or 20s in people who have a genetic mutation"
April 18, 2025 at 2:33 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
...and a wee selection where it's all about the light!

Possibly a touch of weirdness

#photochat
Minimalist black & white close up photograph of a small cluster of young leaves emerging from a bud in spring. The leaves are gently backlit by the sun, clearly showing the vein structure inside. Surreal abstract photograph, showing close up detail of the long flat leaves of a crocosmia plant in summer. The leaves are backlit by the low sun, so they seem to glow. The whole photograph is slightly grainy, with strong contrast and slightly desaturated colours. The leaves are a warm yellowish-green, and there are hints of almost pinkish light in places. Surreal atmospheric photograph, showing a few tiny moss sporophytes emerging out of the snow, silhouetted against the bright disk of the setting sun. The whole frame is bathed in deep ethereal purple tones, and the snow in the foreground is dark, giving the whole thing the appearance of an alien landscape. Dreamlike close up colour photograph of a dried out plant stem in winter. The plant has a number of sweeping curved hairlike tendrils coming out from a central stem. They glow a soft yellowish tone in the low sunlight, contrasting with a deep blueish background. Points of out of focus light can be seen amongst the blue of the background, including one large oval-shaped yellow patch that reminds me of the moon in a night sky.
March 13, 2025 at 6:39 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
OK so for an earlier question I mentioned plants and light as my favourite subject for macro.

Here are some plants:

#photochat
Minimalist close up photograph of a curled plant tendril, forming a tight spiral that appears to float in the middle of the frame. The background is a gradient of soft greens, darker at the top corners Surreal close up photograph of a single white dog rose. The colours are completely unnatural but sit well together - the foliage ranges from deep purple to a very dark greenish-blue, and the flower itself is a pale creamy colour with a slightly warm pinkish tone. The stamens and the centre of the flower are vivid pink. Close up photograph of the end of a branch of a monkey puzzle tree. Densely packed triangular leaves are arranged in a repeating pattern of concentric circles that fades off into the background. The colour tones are rich greens, and there is visible film grain Close up photograph of a tiny patch of moss, sitting on an icy surface in winter. The moss has a cluster of sporophytes pointing straight upwards, some of which are in sharp focus, and some falling away into a soft blur. The colour tones are cool, muted and soft.
March 13, 2025 at 6:28 PM
moragperkinsphoto.com
FFS

Know what this road leads to? The recycling centre, and a park where I was planning to take photographs.

No pedestrians access. To. A. Park.

A park!

This is really not on
Road with a warning sign to beware of pedestrians, and a sign that points to “Dawsholm Recycling Centre” Below these signs is a temporary yellow roadworks sign that reads “NO PEDESTRIAN ACCESS” It is a sunny winter day with blue skies and white fluffy clouds
February 24, 2025 at 3:27 PM