I am lecturer at the University of Glasgow. When I was eight, I first saw how my older sisters printed photographs in the kitchen. It was all there; the night, an unusual environment, the smell of the chemicals, the red light. The magical appearance of pictures was exciting since. Art photography came to me when I arrived to teach Linguistics at a university in the Russian North-West. The nature of the North fascinated me instantly. Every summer, I would go with students to the Russian North, on dialectological expeditions. During this time I felt the magic of the colours of a summer’s ‘white’ nights.