Govanhill: Beyond the frame. Stories from a Scottish photographer.

The Stirling Photography Festival are delighted to be hosting Simon with a selection from his Govanhill project as part of our 2025 festival programme.

Simon has been documenting people in Govanhill for the last 16 years with the resulting images giving an insight into one of Scotland's most diverse areas, a mixing pot of cultures and ethnicities. Govanhill is about people and community, and Simon's images celebrate diversity and beauty in difference.

This specially curated collection of this long-term project consists mainly of street portraiture of individuals who live and pass through the area.

Simon will hold a number of in gallery talks during September, inviting you to learn about the works on show as well as his other projects.

Simon says " I will tell stories connected to my role as a Scottish photographer and how photography changed my life, pushed me out of my own comfort zone and took me to places far beyond the boundaries of my hometown of Glasgow ".

About Simon

Simon is a lecturer at Glasgow Kelvin College and his professional career as a photographer has seen him to travel extensively shooting human interest stories in countries such as Bangladesh, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Cambodia. His portraiture subjects range from individuals such as the Dalai Lama to musicians and actors including Noel Gallagher, Bobby Gillespie and John Hurt. Simon won the Scottish Portrait Award (Richard Coward award in photography) in 2019 and was a winner of the Portrait of Britain Award in 2019. He has been published extensively including in the Portrait of Humanity book and the British Journal of Photography.

Instagram: @smurph77

More About Govanhill

Simon held a major exhibition of his Govanhill project at Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow in 2023/2024. You can read more about that exibition here.

Our Partners

We are pleased to have the support of Street Level Photoworks in bringing Simon's exhibition to the Stirling Photography Festival and to the Macrobert Arts Centre, a long term festival partner, for hosting.