The Photographers

Just as much as they liked to see the race results printed in the papers and magazines, so the athletes liked to see photographs of their own races – maybe even more if it was a picture of themselves in action – and pretty well every runner has a picture cut out from the local or national paper in their training diary or scrapbook.   Now, in the 21st century, there are some very good photographers providing state of the art photographs and posting them on line – Kenny Phillips and Bobby Gavin spring to mind.   It was not always the case though.   

We have here the work of three photographers who added to the sport between the 50’s and 1990.   First we have JJ Miller from Hamilton whose work was available just one week after the race in question – eg at Dunblane there was a table set up selling photographs taken at Shotts and the weeks immediately before that.   They were black and white with a border, postcard sized and the last price I remember buying one for was 5/- (five shillings = 25 pence).   Then we have Willie McGregor from Springburn.   Willie was a good club member of Springburn Harriers and a very good photographer indeed.   Again they were black and white but much larger than Miller’s postcard size and with no border.   Very good, clear, high definition pictures they were a welcome addition to the athletics scene.   Finally we have Graham MacIndoe from Broxburn who took so many photographs in the 1980’s.   They were both black & white  and  colour, beautifully framed and printed in many athletics publications such as Athletics Weekly, Marathon and Distance Runner, Scotland’s Runner, etc.   Into the 21st century and they are still very popular and seen in many sites on the internet – especially on his own Facebook page which you can see at  

https://www.facebook.com/ScottishRunning1980s/

We have now added two of the photographers from the old “Scots Athlete” in the form of George Barber of Maryhill Harriers and Ben Bickerton of Shettleston.   Not big time professional photographers and without access to any of the equipment now available, their work should not be ignored.   See some of their work by following the links below

Ben Bickerton            GS Barber           JJ Miller               Willie McGregor                    Graham MacIndoe