In 1967, Joseph McKenzie was commissioned by the Carnegie Trust to produce a photographic study of Dunfermline and its people, comprising approximately 100 images.

Given considerable freedom to move throughout the town and record its life, McKenzie went far beyond the original commission. The completed study comprised some 440 photographs, which he presented to the Carnegie Trust, creating an extensive portrait of Dunfermline, its people and its social contrasts … and in typical McKenzie generosity at no extra cost!

Not all of what McKenzie recorded was comfortably received. Among the photographs were images of homeless and marginalised people living beneath the arches in Pittencrieff Park, including individuals drinking from bottles concealed in paper bags. Some objected to these images, arguing that they did not present a true reflection of Dunfermline.

For McKenzie, however, such scenes were part of the town he had been asked to observe. His study did not seek simply to celebrate Dunfermline, but to record the breadth of life he encountered — from its streets and institutions to ordinary people and those living at the margins of society.

The resulting 440-image study is therefore far more than a commissioned portrait of a Scottish town. It is a characteristically independent McKenzie record of a place and its people at a particular moment in time.