Books: Hook's Pictorial Edinburgh

I got a lovely present from my grandparents a little while ago.   It was a book of photographs of Edinburgh, called Hood's Pictorial Edinburgh.   They bought on a holiday to Edinburgh during the 30s.   All the photos are from that time, and I love it!   I've always loved old photos of familiar towns, because I find it very interesting to see how they've changed.   It really is a lovely book.   Here are a few photos from it:

Photography: Beltane

On the last day of April every year the Beltane festival takes place here in Edinburgh.   It's a pagan festival of fore and fertility and marks the beginning of summer.   It's quite a big thing.   Every year people paint themselves with body paint, wear odd costumes, dance, frolic, set fire to things and act out the battle between summer and winter.   It's all a great spectacle and a great chance to take pictures.   Here is their website.   I used an external flash for these.   I suppose the biggest challenge for this shoot was the sheer number of people about.   It was hard to get to the front of the crowd and get a clear shot.   I've found a good technique is not to follow the procession, but to keep ahead of it.   Sadly others have worked out this trick too.   Here are a few of my favorite Beltane photos.   Warning: may contain breasts!

Blossom and Flowers

In April/May Edinburgh is carpetted in cherry blossom.   I, of course, like to photograph it.   Here is a cherry blossom photo I took last year in George V Park near my flat:

 Ah, lovely pinkness.   I love how it's so thick, and just everywhere.   Notice the new signature in the bottom left-hand corner, added after this incident.   


This is another one taken the same day and same place.   Possibly my favorite ever cherry blossom photo I've taken.   It's a different type of blossom.   It's not the pale pink one that's everywhere, but the bright magenta one.   What I like most about this one is the contrast of the magenta against the bright blue sky behind it.   Gorgeous!   To get this shot I had to find a low-hanging branch with the sky behind it and shoot straight upwards.

And just for good measure, here are some blue bells in someone's garden right by the park.   All three photos were taken with my macro lens.

    

Up Blackford Hill

I love Edinburgh.   I love looking over it.   One of my favorite Edinburgh views is from up Blackford Hill, with Arthur's Seat towering over it all.   Like so:
 

In the right light, Blackford Hill itself is very pretty too.

Warriston Cemetery

There's a strange old cemetery near me.   It's very overgrown and atmospheric.   There are lots of fallen grave stones and grave stones that have just been piled up and put to one side.   You'd think it was completely abandoned, but it's actually pretty popular with dog walkers, and it joins onto a newer, well-maintained cemetery.   I thought it would make for some cool photos so I took my camera down there.   But somehow, I just couldn't get the photos to work.   Neither the normal jpegs or the HDR photos looked good.   In the end, I decided to try making them black and white.   I hadn't really had much experience working in black and white, and I'd never tried to make black and white HDR photos before.   My photography textbooks had a lot of advice to offer on the subject of turning photos black and white by working with one colour at a time to get the best tonal range, but didn't have a lot to say on the subject of black and white HDRs.   So I asked around, played around, and ended up whacking the contrast way up on a lot of them.   I ended up with some fairly striking and interesting results, but I think the place is definitely worth another trip in the future.

                                             And a fallen statue that works better in colour

Blackford Park

There's a little group of trees in Blackford Park that I always think look very dramatic against the skyline.   Whenever I go there the light seems to be wrong for photographing them, and this visit was no exception.   With this shot I tried to compensate by taking an HDR photo.   It sort of worked.   I think I got an image that looks OK, though I still want to go back in better light and have another attempt.

More Fringe Shows

Time to review the other two Fringe shows I watched.   One of them was Panga, written by my friend Sam Siggs.   It had a very interesting concept.   It centres around a 20 something year old woman, Lucy, who's a bit of a mess, and her boyfriend.   One day her mother sends her a bunch of her old toys, and her cuddly panda, Panga (pronounced like that because she had adenoids) suddenly comes to life, as a full-sized talking, walking panda.   At first she's terrified, but very quickly warms to the idea of having her childhood playmate back.   The two of them spend their days playing wild games and getting incerasingly drunk.   The climax of the play comes when Panga tries to kill Lucy's boyfriend.   A fight ensues, and Panga gets his head cut off, whereupon he transforms back into a harmless cuddly toy.   I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this play.   It was staged very well, with plenty of little creative touches, and the acting was excellent.   As I've said before, I thought the concept was very interesting, and it was very funny, but I just feel like the play was missing a message of some kind.   A tangible effect Panga's visit had on Lucy.   Some sort of point to the play.   It just left me a bit confused really.   It was actually quite strongly reminiscent of the film Drop Dead Fred.   It had the same feeling of chaos and mischief and losing control.   Worth seeing, but not Sam's best.  

          



Finally, the Blanks, also known as The Worthless Peons, Ted's band from Scrubs.   They're an a capella band.   I enjoyed seeing them.   The singing was really good, and they did all their famous ones.   It was interesting to see that Sam (Ted) was by far the worst singer amongst them.   The other three were all really talented.   Perhaps I just don't have very much patience, because the filler between songs really pissed me off.   It was just so American and tacky, unfunny and unnecessary.   They also performed a Hallowe'en song, which was very funny, but just gave me the impression that their repertoire is pretty small.   All in all, an enjoyable show, but could have been better.

    

Enlighten Edinburgh

Sorry about the lack of blog these last while.   Christmas, you know.   Now on  with the entry!   Back in March the Edinburgh City of Literature Trust projected quotes from the Scottish Enlightment onto various buildings around the city centre for a few days.   Naturally I went out to photograph it, and it was well worth it!   Here are a few of my favourite photos from it:

This was a giant globe in Charlotte Sqaure with a Geological and weather type video and a James Hutton quote projected onto it.   "A succession of worlds...no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end".   Being a James Hutton fan, I found it quite exciting.

This is the Royal Society of Edinburgh building on George Street, lit up with an Adam Smith quote: "Science is the great antidote against the poison of superstition and enthusiasm".   I have to say this was the best projection for me.   It was so big and bold and striking.   The use of the features of the building was very clever and the whole thing was just beautiful.   The whole project was pretty awesome actually.   A great idea, and well executed.  There were more projections, but the pictures of those weren't particularly exciting.   And so, I shall leave you with this:

Not actaully part of Enlighten Edinburgh.   This a shopfront on George Street.   They project a live webcam view of a beach in California onto their windows 24 hours a day.   Pretty cool, huh?

Edinburgh Castle by Night

Two of my good friends have an absolutely fantastic view of Edinburgh Castle from their living room window, so a little while ago I went to photograph it, by night.   I took my camera, tripod, remote release and spirit level and changed shutter speeds and aperture until I found an exposure I liked.   Once I'd done that I opened the living room window and took my final shots.   I wanted to get as much right as I could with the window closed because it was a cold night!   The castle is always beautifully lit up at night and I manged to get a shot I really like.   Here it is:

German Market

Every year at Christmas time a German market comes to town, and everyone goes out to do their Christmas shopping, drilled mulled wine and eat waffles.   It's a beautiful market, so naturally I went along with my camera and macro lens.   Here are a few of my favorite shots from that night:

                                                Blurry, I know.   It's an attempt at artiness.

They also have rides at the Christmas market.   Here are a couple of shots of the rides:

It was cold taking those!   Very very cold!   I highly recommend a pair of silk gloves.   They're thin enough for you to operate your equipment without getting cold burns from touching cold metal tripods.