SANDWICHED between the wildness of Wales and the increasingly industrialised and built upon Worcestershire, Herefordshire is still hanging in there as God’s Own Country.

Its rural feel evokes memories of times gone by and in a pictorial record of the county it would be easy to give the impression things haven’t changed much since the 1950s.

Of course, they have. In its technical enclaves, either around Hereford itself or maybe out on some barn conversion business park, Herefordshire can be as cutting edge as anywhere. It’s just that when you drive out beyond the 30 mph limits there is a lot of countryside to see and not always many people. Time warp isn’t really the phrase, but there is a timelessness about the view, the inhabitants and the places.

All of which have been quite magnificently captured in a photographic exhibition currently on display at Hereford’s Courtyard Theatre. It’s a large scale version of the book A Portrait of Herefordshire (Halsgrove, £24.99) by Worcestershire photo journalist Malcolm Scott, who lives at Brockamin, near Leigh, just west of Worcester.

Having produced a couple of nostalgia volumes about the villages near to his home, Scott has crossed the county boundary and trained his lens on life in Herefordshire. His photographs are given added grit by being in black and white, a medium that allows concentration on the subject rather than being distracted by verdant green meadows or azure blue skies.

Scott said: “Although now it does not depend solely on agriculture for its wealth, Herefordshire certainly still depends on farming for its character, many of its leisure activities and its varied landscapes.

“The county’s scenery and its way of life have also made it a haven for one of the largest groups of artists and craftspeople in England. The aim of the book is to try to portray this diversity and to produce a composite portrait of Herefordshire. Although there are some landscapes and townscapes, the main focus has been on people at work and leisure.

“However, none of the pictures are posed. For people at work I simply watched what was going on before starting to take photographs and then stayed long enough to try to do justice to the activity.”

How well he succeeded you can see in the book, or by dropping into the Courtyard exhibition, which is on until Saturday, February 26.