- 01 PRAYER FLAGS | Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
This is a collection of Edinburgh photographs taken on walks around the city and mainly from 2016 and 2018. Some are simply random, of something that 'caught my eye' whilst others are from more concentrated ideas. Walking in the Nepal landscape of the Royal Botanic Gardens these streamers of prayer flags magically appeared. Bright sunshine in a clearing amongst the trees saturated their already vivid colours.
- 02 BANNERS | National Library of Scotland
This is an early (2006) digital image taken outside the National Library of Scotland. Its exhibition programme is varied and always interesting. These banners advertised 'Birds of a feather: Audubon's adventures in Edinburgh'. John James Audubon 1785-1851 first visited Edinburgh in 1826. An NLS quote: 'His Edinburgh encounters were crucial to the production of this four-volume work. Containing more than 1,000 of his life-like paintings, it created an important record of nearly 490 bird species, some of which are now extinct.' I seemed fortunate with the direction and intensity of the prevailing light.
- 03 EXHIBITION BANNER & POSTERS | Royal Scottish Academy
On my most recent day in Edinburgh I concentrated on exhibitions, with photography restricted to what briefly stopped me when walking between venues. I'd looked at 'In focus: Scottish Photography' at the City Arts Centre and was walking from there to the National Portrait Gallery on Queen Street. Here, the Royal Scottish Academy summer exhibition was advertised by a printed fabric image hung against their neoclassical building. This composition reminded me of that in Image 1, its proportions cropped to echo that banner.
- 04 BRONZE | David Hume 1785-1851
A sculpture of David Hume, Scottish philosopher, stands in front of the Law Courts on the Lawnmarket at the upper end of the Royal Mile. Larger than life-size, his seated figure rests on a low and simple stone plinth inscribed HUME. It's a 1995 commission by Sandy Stoddart, appointed as the Queen's Sculptor in Ordinary in Scotland in 2008. In earlier times this area by St Giles Cathedral was used by 'lawn merchants' to set stalls selling their 'lawns' (before cotton lawn, a fine-weave linen) and other fabrics.
- 05 BRONZE | Robert Fergusson 1750-1774, poet, Canongate Kirk
Poised in mid-stride, this bronze figure of Robert Fergusson walks the pavement past the gates to the Canongate Kirk on the the Royal Mile. I was unaware then that he was buried there. In 2001 the 'Friends of Robert Fergusson' offered a competitive commission for a memorial to the poet. This work by the winner, David Annand, was placed in 2004. Born in 1948, his work, both figurative and abstract, includes portraits, animals, links to poetry and outdoor sculptures. More portrait heads are included in the HEADS & FACES gallery.
- 06 SHOP WINDOW MANNEQUIN | George Street
A night time foray on Chicago's premier shopping street produced a small collection of shop dummy images shot through window glass from the street: see the NORTH MICHIGAN AVENUE PORTRTAITS gallery I thought to try the same in Edinburgh but with limited success. This is one image, now chosen to contrast with the previous two. George Street in the New Town is wide and flanked by elegant architecture but over stuffed with vehicles both parked and moving. On NMA a slow moving traffic river flows between the sheer fenestrated architectural walls of its canyon.
- 07 DEMOLITION | Market Street
For years this former workshop and garage has gradually decayed on its site next to the City Arts Centre on Market Street. In the summer of 2018 its replacement apartment block was under construction and this image had gone. The simple design of its successor pictured amongst the scaffolding suggests that it will sit comfortably with its neighbours. I liked the accumulation of rectangles and the overall patina of grime and decay in this now vanished relic.
- 08 LETTERING DETAIL | Bank Street
Princes Street and its gardens are overshadowed by the castle on its rocky outcrop and the old buildings of the Royal Mile as it begins its descent to Holyrood Palace. A little to the east of the Castle and similarly set high is the extravagant architectural bulk of a Bank of Scotland building. North Banks Street runs along its southern façade and entrance. I glimpsed this fragment by chance and was drawn particularly to the fading lettering and its shadows enclosed within the building's grid.
- 09 GRAVESTONE | Dean Cemetery
On a previous visit to the Scottish Museum of Modern Art buildings I'd spent time photographing amongst the many fine grave monuments in Dean Cemetery. The strong framing design and its enclosed lettering on this substantial headstone appealed. Rather than the almost universal cutting of letter forms into the surface it was the spaces around and within them that were cut away. Unfortunately this small images size requires good sight and concentration to read. The dates span the turn of the twentieth century.
- 10 GRAVESTONE | Dean Cemetery
Helen Kerr was a social reformer and George Kerr a doctor. They became involved in the Edinburgh Social Union seeking to provide affordable housing for the city's students. In 1889 Helen Kerr was appointed as the Superintendent of Housing in the city; in 1918 she was appointed to a Royal Commission on Working Class Housing in Scotland. In 1920 Edinburgh University awarded her an honorary doctorate for her work in social reform. The headstone was a plain rectangle of grey stone cropped a little in height but not width in this image. Leaf shadows dappled its surface.
- 11 GRAVESTONE | Canongate Kirk
Sunshine on a mid-morning visit to the graveyard around the Canongate Church was casting strong shadows including railing bars across this headstone. Major Samuel Sinclair (d.1816) may well have been a 'servant' of the Honourable East India Company. Established by a Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1600 it was dissolved by the British Government in 1874. Initially a trading company it developed powerful territorial ambitions. In numbers it grew a standing army apparently exceeding that of Britain itself. Its history provides interesting reading.
- 12 STAIRWAY WITH RAILINGS | In an Old Town close
In the Old Town the Royal Mile links the westerly Castle to Holyrood Palace in the east. Lined by multi storey terraced tenements it combines end to end street names such as the Lawnmarket and Canongate mentioned in earlier captions. Narrow closes, pedestrian alleys, cut into their facades lead to other streets or to buildings set behind. This composition in brick and wrought iron appeared in one of them.
- 13 CABLECAR TRACK | Waterloo Place
The Camera Obscura is worth visiting, preferably outside the tourist season. As well as its many intriguing optical devices it displays a number of photographs of nineteenth century Princes Street trams. On one I noticed a line between tracks at its west end suggesting the cable car system in San Francisco. Edinburgh did have a cable car system from c.1880 to c.1925, replaced by conventional electric trams. Sheltered by a Waterloo Place traffic island, this track remnant and its granite setts has been retained but not really preserved. See Captions 16 for more information.
- 14 DECAYING POSTERS & LETTERING | Cowgate
This scruffy and decaying surface is, or was, a fragment from the entrance to the Dyer's Close off Cowgate.
- 15 EXHIBITION STICKERS Bedford Road lamppost
I first encountered the paintings and drawings of Joan Eardley (1921-1963) over forty years ago. Her early work in Glasgow, particularly with children, was followed by land and seascapes set around Catterline on the coast south of Aberdeen. In 2016-17 the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art staged a fine retrospective I visited three times. Bedford Place leads a return walking route from their twin galleries to the city centre. On it, this particular lamppost attracts the sticker tickets issued to visitors. One of mine is somewhere in this fading collage.
- 16 GRAFITTI | Fragments, Shrubhill cable car engine house
This and Image 17 are from the derelict building that once housed the engines and winding gear for part of Edinburgh's late nineteenth century cable car system. Extended from it, a long saw toothed eastern wall once supported an extensive ridge and furrow roofed tram shed. Both and a tall boiler chimney are B- listed buildings to be preserved as an adjunct to a housing development across the rest of the site.
- 17 GRAFITTI | Fragments, Shrubhill cable car engine house
This and Image 16 show graffiti on steel panels blocking door and windows access on the building's northern façade.
- 18 WINDOW GRAFITTO | Stockbridge
A window in the immaculate façade of this shop in Stockbridge carried this grafitto. On my last Stockbridge walk it had been replaced by another in the same style. I quite like the contribution made by the reflections of buildings and in this context the spreading aircraft condensation trail seemed appropriate. The village has an interesting variety of shops both visually and in specialism.