The Hill

Garlinda Birkbeck’s photographs of the various hills around her family’s estate in the Scottish Highlands are known collectively as The Hill. It is there that for decades four hundred deer have grazed. The estate manages the herd with care not just for their well-being by controlling their numbers but with regard to the vegetation and especially the young trees, which the deer readily eat. A balance has to be struck between the size of the herd and the growth of the plant life over the slopes of the Hill. For years, Garlinda has followed the stalker up the Hill and has been present when the shoot begins. This she has photographed unsentimentally.