Jack Marris Photography: bringing Applecross home

By the time our guests reach Applecross, they have usually formed quite a relationship with the Highland landscape. They have photographed mountains, lochs, beaches and constantly changing skies, but many begin to realise that their smartphones cannot reproduce the colour, texture or depth of what they have seen. After lunch at the Applecross Inn or the Walled Garden, it is only a quick hop, skip and jump south from The Street to the Applecross Gallery, where Jack Marris displays the landscape rather more successfully.

Jack moved to Applecross after travelling extensively around Scotland in search of landscapes to photograph, and he later opened his gallery inside the village’s former telephone exchange. His work extends well beyond Applecross, taking in Skye, Torridon, the wider northwest coast and other parts of Scotland, but it is the local photography that often connects most strongly with our guests. They recognise the mountains, roads and shorelines through which we have recently travelled, except Jack has waited for the correct season, climbed into position and remained there until the landscape, weather and light finally came together.

I do not automatically take every guest to the gallery because an interest in landscape does not necessarily become an interest in landscape photography. If I think Jack’s work will appeal, however, we make the short diversion and see what happens. Some guests browse and leave without buying anything, while others choose a postcard, a calendar or a modest print. On a recent visit, two Australian guests spent around £600, while I added approximately £80 worth of calendars and a print of a new photograph that had caught my eye. Jack offers everything from cards and mounted prints to large canvases and photographs presented in handmade larch frames, so ownership does not necessarily require either a large wall or a large wallet.

I have known Jack for several years, and we have both had the pleasure of watching the other become older. He and his staff are always warm and welcoming, and I enjoy spending time in the studio regardless of whether our guests buy a postcard or commission something substantial. The value of the gallery is not simply that it sells beautiful photographs. It gives visitors an opportunity to talk to somebody who has invested the time, physical effort and patience required to capture a landscape that has resisted their own smartphones throughout the tour. Jack enables them to take home something more truthful than a hurried snapshot and considerably easier to pack than an Applecross mountain.

To learn more, book one of our North Coast Explorer private tours.