Nessie: 75 years of photographs

Legend has it a huge sea creature inhabits the waters of Loch Ness. It was first mentioned by St. Columba in 565 when he wrote about how he saved the life of a Pict near what is now Loch Ness, from a ‘ferocious’ monster. However, it was the introduction of a road running by the loch that helped produce the myth we know today.

In 1933, Alex Campbell, a part time journalist, reportedly coined the term ‘monster’ when reporting on the sighting of “the nearest approach to a dragon or pre-historic beast that I have ever seen in my life” by a Loch Ness tourist. Only a month later, another claim popped up and many more followed after. But it wasn’t until 1934, when the first photo of the Loch Ness Monster was produced, that ‘Nessie’ fever really took off. Taken by Kenneth Wilson on April 19th, 1934, the ‘Surgeon’s Photograph’, as it’s known, has since been declared a fake. But the imagination of the world was captivated by the story of the beast of the loch.