Mark's exhibition, called simply Fancy Pictures, runs at the Mount Stuart visitor centre until September 30 in the latest instalment of the Mount Stuart Trust's contemporary visual arts programme - and we went along on both Saturday and Sunday to find out more about Mark and his work.

A large group of locals - many featured in Mark's photographs - went along to a preview on Saturday, and another 50 people attended an illustrated talk on Sunday afternoon, and were treated to a good old-fashioned slide show of photographs of rural Bute.

Mark said: "I was thinking of Russia when I made the images - you can initially imagine a place much better if you have never been there.

"I think wildlife film-making and cinematography is essentially an updated version of British 18th century landscape painting.

"Even since Muybridge, I think technological advances in photographic tecniques, and how we use them to frame animals, say as much about value systems in Britain today as a painting by Reynolds tells us about the aristocracy's realtionship to the land two hundred years ago.

"I decided to make this connection using backdrops so that wildlife action in the foreground would seem almost like an elegant graffiti."

Schooled in The Buteman's 'point and click' photographic technique, this description was more than a little over our heads - but we couldn't fail to be impressed by the physical quality of the images and the actual compositions which, in some cases, took many hours to achieve.

But it was the subjects of many of the images which caught our imagination and that of most of the audience at Saturday's preview.

Particularly memorable are Annie MacDougall, who Mark said had given him "enormous help", Crawford and Elizabeth Currie, vet Duncan MacIntyre and the dancers at a Young Farmers' ball.

The exhibition also features images of such kenspeckle island figures as Sheriff J. Irvine Smith, who is captured looking suitably stern and forbidding in his study - though Mark admitted the sheriff had told him the photograph took "20 years off my age".

Some of the locations were a little hard to work out, but we did get caught up in a slight case of 'the Emperor's new clothes' when we saw a striking picture of an apparently dead lamb on a rock - the scene looked like Dunagoil, but the backdrop of the Arran hills seemed back to front.

We just put that down to our ageing eyesight and didn't dare question it - and it took former Academy art teacher Lyn Bulloch to ask the question: "Is one of your picture reversed on purpose?"

What little music exists as a backdrop is very dramatic - the main soundtrack was made by Rothesay Academy school captains Kerr Slaven and Megan Alexander, though they didn't realise they were composing music to go along with images of Bute. More on their role in the project next week.

Back at Mount Stuart, Mark's talk on Sunday was followed by the showing of a 16mm film depicting the births of several lambs, seagulls at Rothesay Pier and cygnets with their mum - all shot in a very high-tech slow motion.

Like the slideshow, Mark asks of the film: "Who is the audience? Is it the farmers of Bute, who feature in the work, the patron of the piece, or the art world?"

Not a question we feel qualified to answer, so you'll need to go along and make up your own mind. At the same time you can check out the four photographic prints Mark has displayed within Mount Stuart itself.

Fancy Pictures runs until September 30 in the visitor centre and admission, which is free, is from 10am to 6pm daily.