Fair Isle might as well have been as remote as Tahiti for all that Sophie Gerrard knew about it. Even in Scotland itself, the Edinburgh-based photographer says, the satellite islands of Shetland, which also include Foula, are romanticised – if they are given much thought at all.

In the case of a treeless lump of rocky moorland, cast adrift between Shetland and Orkney, awareness often starts and stops with its place in the Shipping Forecast (‘gales, soon’). Then there are the eponymous knitted sweaters, whose delicate patterns are much-imitated.

‘When you say “Fair Isle” to people, first they think you’ve said “Faroe” and go, “Is that where they kill all the dolphins?” And you say, no, it’s “Fair Isle”,’ Gerrard says. ‘And then maybe they’ve heard of knitting, but generally that’s it. But it’s an extraordinary island and I’ve always been fascinated to know what it means to come from a place like that.’

Gerrard got her chance to find out in the autumn of 2021, when she and another photographer – Tessa Bunney – secured a creative residency on Fair Isle, one of the most remote inhabited islands in the UK, with its population of just 60.

For a month the pair, who were old friends but had not worked together, lived in a tiny blue cottage in the island’s relatively verdant south. It’s here that much of Fair Isle’s communal farming, or crofting, takes place.

Lighthouses at the southern and northern tips of the island are just three miles apart. Between them lie towering cliffs, a tiny airport that is frequently shut by wind, a sheltered bay where a pier serves a ferry link to Shetland, and a few dozen houses scattered along an asphalt spine.

Other creatives who have spent time on the island have focused on its rugged landscapes. Many come to knit and be inspired by centuries of tradition and Fair Isle’s distinctive colour-rich pattern, which became world-famous in the 1920s when the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) wore natty V-necks while golfing.

Gerrard and Bunney wanted to weave themselves into the island’s social fabric. They set about tentatively making friends. Not everybody wanted to be involved, but the pictures and portraits they took tell a story of precarious yet rich lives.

‘It’s not a romantic place at all,’ says Gerrard, who often worked with her six-month-old son Finn strapped to her chest (‘He was a great icebreaker’). ‘If you’re living there, you’ve probably got five jobs and you’re working at the whim of the elements to an extreme degree.’

Steven Wilson’s family have lived on Fair Isle since 1560. He’s a fisherman, ferryman and crofter with a flock of about 100 sheep. His fishing licence doesn’t yet permit him to sell his catch, so he gives a lot away. ‘I go around all the houses because, at the end of the day, I’m related to most of the Isle so I’m feeding my family,’ he told the photographers, who conducted interviews with residents alongside shoots. 

The pair soon became a familiar sight on the island, having boosted its population by just over four per cent the moment they set foot on dry land. ‘People stopped all the time to offer us a lift or just for a chat,’ says Bunney, who is based in North Yorkshire. ‘I wondered whether they would have got tired of all these visiting artists but they haven’t seemed to so far.’

There are currently only four children on Fair Isle, which has been owned by the National Trust for Scotland for almost 70 years. Two of them belong to Eileen Thomson, whose own roots there stretch back at least 400 years. Her father used to skipper the Good Shepherd, the island’s ageing ferry. Eileen went to university in Edinburgh, where she was stunned by the cherry blossom, having grown up without ever seeing a tree.

In 2017, she decided to return home to raise her family with her partner, who works remotely online. ‘In a small and busy community, each person really matters,’ Thomson said in 2021. ‘We all have work that needs to be done to make our little island work. In such a small place you can make such an impact… and the chance to be so useful is a wonderful thing.’

The tough yet rewarding lifestyle has also attracted a surprisingly diverse range of visitors who find it hard to leave. Gerrard and Bunney met Mati Ventrillon, who arrived from Venezuela in 2007 and never left, and Marie Bruhat, who moved to the island from France in 2017. 

Both women now run knitwear businesses, while chipping in with other work; Ventrillon has worked variously as a crofter and school secretary, while Bruhat is also a firefighter. She has come to value the lack of control such a landscape affords its tenants.

‘Every day is determined by the weather, not by your wishes,’ she said. ‘It’s a wonderful way to live, although at times can be frustrating. But then frustration is the result of resistance, so we must learn to accept what cannot be changed.’

It would be easy for a place like this to submit to the winds of modernity but Fair Isle and its people have proved stubborn, while also embracing technology when it suits them. Superfast broadband was installed just before Christmas. The old ferry, meanwhile, which relies on a crane and has space for just one car, is due to be replaced after Government funding was secured last year for a roll-on, roll-off upgrade – which may yet change the character of Fair Isle. Meanwhile demand remains high for the eponymous knits.

Above all, the photographers came to understand why such a remote lifestyle is worth preserving, given that it could easily be absorbed on Shetland. As Gerrard says, ‘I think that if we lose these places, you lose this rich tapestry of experience and life, and you will never get it back.’