Every photographer has, at some point, blamed their gear. The lens wasn't sharp enough, the sensor too noisy, the light too flat. It's comforting, but it falls apart entirely when you look at the work of John D Rattar (1876-1957) – the Shetland joiner-turned-photographer whose 150th anniversary is being marked this month with a major exhibition.
Rattar, whose earliest known photographs date back to 1890-92, was entirely self-taught. He worked with equipment that would look laughably basic by today's standards, in an era when a single exposure demanded patience most of us have long since outsourced to burst mode.
