International images for new photography festival

Photographer Sigga Ella's critically-acclaimed series of images will be exhibited at Flow Photofest

A new festival taking place next month will celebrate the work of photographers from Scotland, Norway, Finland and Iceland.

Flow Photofest will open in Inverness on 2 September and will involve exhibitions in more than nine venues throughout the north of Scotland.

Other venues are due to be added to the festival.

Photographers from France and Latvia have also submitted images.

Mat Hay's image Heather Burn, which will be exhibited at the festival

Its organisers said that among the highlights would be photographs by Iceland's Ragnar Axelsson, who has travelled throughout the Arctic for almost three decades taking pictures of people and place for a series called Faces of the North.

Another Icelandic photographer, Sigga Ella, will present First and foremost I am, a critically-acclaimed series of 21 portraits of people who all have Down's Syndrome.

The photographer will also talk about her work at an event on 2 September.

Latvian-born Inverness College UHI student Evija Laivina will be exhibiting photographs from her series Beauty Warriors that received a LensCulture Student Spotlight Award 2017.

The festival will also feature the world premiere of a collection of photographs called Faroe Islands which explore the population decline among women.

The images were taken by Andrea Gjestvang a multi award-winning Norwegian photographer who works from Oslo and Berlin.

Matt Sillars, who founded and organised the festival with Roddy McKenzie and Paul Campbell, said: "When we invited these award-winning artists to exhibit here in the north of Scotland we didn't know what to expect.

"We are overwhelmed by the positive response we received and really excited to welcome such incredible talent to the area."

An image from Ragnar Axelsson's Faces of the North

All images are copyrighted.