Maxwell's tartan ribbon is also the modest flag that marks more than 150 years of Scotland's contribution to photography, and photographic history.

Since the birth of the photographic process in 1839, Scottish thinkers and artists have succeeded again and again in innovating both the content and the technology of the medium.

It would be wrong, however, to imagine that Scotland's relationship with photography is purely a historical one. Two of the most globally influential photographers of the twentieth century – both of whom are still living and working – are also Scottish born, and claim their Scottish roots as major inspiration. Albert Watson and Harry Benson both work from the US these days, although both have recently enjoyed major exhibitions of their work in Scotland.

Glasgow-born Harry Benson had a keen eye from early boyhood – both for an image and an opportunity. David Friend, long-time friend and colleague of Benson's at Vanity Fair, once related that the youthful Benson was quite an entrepreneur – photographing local weddings in the morning, developing the film in his garden shed and selling the images back to the bridegroom apparently within three hours!

From these early beginnings, where it seems his legendary ability to be at the right place at the right time was already burgeoning, Benson's career has flourished in a truly astonishing way. Moving from impromptu wedding photographer to Fleet Street and the British tabloids by his mid-twenties, Benson's major career break came in 1964 with an assignment to photograph the Beatles in America. Something changed for Benson at that point; he remained in America and went on to take one of the most comprehensive collections of Beatles photographs ever made (reproduced in the 2003 book Once There Was A Way) and he has never looked back.

Benson has taken some of the most remembered images in popular culture; from the Clintons at play, to Michael Jackson's Neverland, Nixon's resignation, the Soviet Fleet in the Persian Gulf, and the ruins of Ground Zero. Benson's images are glimpses of our own history. In famously recording 'how people imagine themselves to be', Benson has created a portfolio that reveals the changing zeitgeist of the age, holding a gilded mirror up to our society's impressions of itself.

Benson's incredible trajectory, from a boyhood in wartime Glasgow to extraordinary fame and fortune in New York, is matched only by the life and photographic career of fellow Scot Albert Watson.

Born in 1942 in Penicuik, near Edinburgh, Watson has been blind in one eye since birth. Far from being a disadvantage however, this visual quirk has been credited with allowing him to see the whole world as a photographic image by 'flattening' his vision. Whether Watson's phenomenal success can be ascribed solely to this idiosyncrasy is doubtful, however, for this internationally-renowned photographer has a celebrated ability to make his own luck.

After studying art at Duncan of Jordanston in Dundee and gaining an MA from the Royal College of Art in London, Watson, too, decided to move to America, where by 1970 at the age of only 28 he had already attracted the attention of Max Factor and begun his commercial career in earnest.

Picked up in 1976 by Vogue, Watson moved from Los Angeles to his current base in New York but, if one photograph can ever be said to make a photographer's career, by this time Watson had already taken his life-changing image. Shot in 1973 to accompany a less-than-groundbreaking article on celebrity cooking, the image Watson constructed of Alfred Hitchcock holding a strangled goose is iconic. The strength of this image, like so many others that Watson has taken throughout his distinguished career, is the formidable sense of power that it exudes. Menacing and ambivalent in its brooding composition, the photograph paved the way for a lifetime of commercial success encompassing a staggering 500 TV commercials, 280 Vogue cover photographs, and ubiquitous celebrity images from Uma Thurman to Mick Jagger.

There is a well-known myth about this most prolific of photographers that an image of Watson's graces the cover of at least one magazine somewhere in the world every single day. While this might not strictly be true, it does suggest the phenomenal impact he has had on the world of contemporary culture. With an honorary doctorate of arts from Napier University Edinburgh, and his 2006 retrospective work titled Frozen, Watson proves that he is still at the top of his game.

Both Watson and Benson represent artists at the height of their powers and reputation, for whom Scotland has been both birthplace and spiritual home, but not a permanent base. Following in their footsteps, however, is Glasgow-based photographer Iain Clark, whose relationship to Scotland is far more immediate. As with many younger artists, Clark has enjoyed a multiplicity of roles within the art-world including as an artist, gallerist, promoter, and critic but it is with his recent collection of photographic portraits of Scottish writers that he has really come to public attention. His exhibition Inspired, shown at The Hub, Aberdeen as part of the Six Cities Design Festival featured images of 25 contemporary Scottish writers photographed with a designed object that inspired them in some way.

The images are intimate, revealing, and personal, as the sitters use their chosen objects as props to speak to the viewer. There is a clear link to the canon of Watson and Benson, but Clark's work also charts the evolution of photography as he belongs to the generation of artists for whom digital technology is as fluent a tool as any traditional media. Clark uses digital manipulation to produce gestural and expressive images that move away from pure representation towards a more painterly approach. Clark's upcoming solo exhibition Capture, showing at the Collins Gallery in Glasgow will highlight the importance of colour and new media as ways to develop the idea of portraiture within his work.

Clark is part of a new wave of Scotland-based artists who are continuing to innovate the field of photography. For the last 10 years Scottish artist Chris Leslie has used documentary photography to raise awareness of institutionalised and orphaned children in situations as diverse as the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Africa. Simultaneously the Brazil-born, Glasgow-based photographer Kendall Koppe's work has involved perfecting the techniques of printing black on black photographic images.

Koppe's practice in particular suggests a final chapter to this story of Scottish success, and one that shows how times have changed since Watson and Benson started out in their careers. Far from Scots having to strike out to America to find fame and fortune, Scotland's own reputation as a centre for cutting edge artistic practice is now firmly established: so much so that now, in the twenty-first century, young artists from all over the world come to Scotland to make a home and pursue their careers. It is this wealth of photographic talent in Scotland – from the early days of photography to its dynamic and challenging future – that we now celebrate.

Further Information:

Courtesy of Scottish Government - Scotland.org .