Stormy weather

Down to Portobello this afternoon with my mate and his dog to let him have a run around off the leash on the beach (the dog, not my friend), only to find what was a cold wind in the city centre of Edinburgh was a howling gale coming right off the North Sea at Porty, whipping the waves up into big foaming gray peaks and slamming right into the sea wall so hard they splashed right up the side, across the Esplanade and hit the wall of the structure on the other side. That was when we decided to walk around the block at the worst bit :-) Pictures are a bit fuzzy, the wind was so high my camera lens, glasses and my face were all getting whipped by flying sand granules and salt spray, had to clean them repeatedly but within minutes they just got covered with a film of it again.

Easy rider

At last, the answer to the age old problem of sore saddle arse:

Dad in the City Art Centre

Out and about for Glasgow's Doors Open Day at the weekend with dad, who decided to sit down and have a breather while I wandered up the stairs in the City Art Centre on Sauchiehall Street, which has a lovely 'inside-outside' feel to its courtyard, with the external walls of old buildings making the atrium which is covered but flooded with natural light, even on overcast days. I went up the open stairs to take a few pics and leaning over the rail to look down spotted dad, who looked up towards me just as I was taking a pic; quite pleased with this one.

Framed

She's been framed :-)











For some reason this just seemed like one of these street shots that worked better in monochrome. I don't know why, but some pics just work better in black and white.

The Ukulele Lady

Amanda Palmer warming up in the basement of Forbidden Planet in Edinburgh this afternoon before a signing (and singing!) session for her and Neil Gaiman's book "Who Killed Amanda Palmer". Amanda has a music gig later this week as part of the Edinburgh Fringe (and is doing smaller gigs during the week as well), Neil is in town shortly for the Edinburgh International Book Festival, we're helping her sell the book while she's here and today was a nice chance for the fans to come and meet her - really good turnout, city centre buzzing with Festival goers plus a big line of fans waiting to meet Amanda adding to it all. This was Amanda getting into her zone before meeting the fans by performing a song for us all; I've videoed her performance (with her permission) and will add it here once I have time to sort it and upload it to YouTube.

wee old couple

Walking with dad down by Holyrood near the Parliament I saw this elderly couple standing by one of the walls of the Palace of Holyrood and was trying to get a pic of them from my side of the road, but every time I tried a stream of cars would go past, or other people would walk through my frame. Finally, just as they started slowly walking again I got a shot; I just liked the image, their age, their character and how sweet it was that as they walked along so slowly, both stooped with age they were still holding hands.

Pavement cafe

In recent years pavement cafes and bars have become much more common even in Scotland, partly being a bit more Continental but also, I suspect, fuelled by the smoking ban inside bars and restaurants (and what a difference that made, nice to be able to enjoy a pint without leaving smelling like an old ashtray from second hand smoke). For the most part its rather nice sitting outside to enjoy a beer or coffee though so its a change I like, except when some establishments put out chairs and tables in very innapropriate places (like fairly narrow pavements, there are some places they just shouldn't be) or when you get ignorant folks who keep dragging the chairs out further until they're blocking too much pavement and forget folks actually need to talk past them. But on the whole its quite nice we've got a lot more of this now. This was a quickly fired off snap in Edinburgh's New Town; I especially like the young guy sitting on the steps nearby looking over at the tables.

"Picture this"

Still on my rediscovering my love for black and white kick, took this shot in Edinburgh's West End yesterday on my way to speak to the Book Festival folks, the dome of West Register House which is the jewel in the crown of the Georgian New Town's beautiful and prestigious Charlotte Square. I took both a monochrome and a colour shot (mostly because the sky was such a lovely, clear blue) - which is better, do you think?








Personally I think this scene is better served in monochrome. And yes, I know I could shoot once in colour and then create a B&W version in PhotoShop, but as I've said before I prefer not to retouch my pictures other than a little cropping, alter contrast etc slightly, basically no more than I'd have done in my dark room film days, so if you see it in B&W here then I shot in B&W. I think grayscaling from colour in a photo package just seems a little flatter somehow, lacks the kind of silvery glow you get from proper black and white. Anyway, I took both to compare them.







and a slightly longer shot of the same scene taking in one of the gorgeous Georgian street in the West End with the dome rising above everything:

Where to now?

Quick candid street shot on the Royal Mile, a young tourist couple looking at their guide book for ideas of where to visit next in Edinburgh. The Mile is incredibly busy now with visitors, but nothing compared to what it will be like come August and the Festival. And yes, I am still on a bit of a black and white photo kick at the moment, started off using it for architectural shots then decided I quite liked the way some street scenes looked in monochrome. I don't know why but I love capturing un-posed street scenes, I think it appeals to my sense of using photography mostly for 'honest' purposes (ie I don't rework them in Photoshop, usually what you see is what I saw, including monochrome shots - if its in B&W I shot that way, it wasn't in colour then grayscaled afterwards, I think that gives a 'flat' result) and my Gonzo Photographer ethos of not setting up shots and settings much but mostly shooting quickly from the hip at whatever catches my eye; not everyone's way of doing it (some prefer methodical set ups of framing, lighting and settings, I'm more of a spontaneous kind of person in this as in writing), but its how I work with my camera and I enjoy it. And with 31, 000 views on my Flickr stream I assume some other folks must like some of them too.

black and white cat in black and white

Cassie, my plump little black and white, soft-furred puss, in, well, black and white...



And yes, her fur is even softer than it looks here and having her belly scratched is one of her favourite pastimes; she is the Tummy Tickle Tiger and often manages to curl up next to me in such a manner as to make sure she's in position to have aforementioned portly tummy tickled, which is, of course, just a pure coincidence she tells me...

Dizzy auditions for a French arthouse movie

Continuing to play with black and white at the moment, realised I've never taken Dizzy in B&W and with her gorgeous soft gray and white fur she's perfect for some monochrome treatment; click the pics to see the larger versions on my Flickr:

Out and about

I've kept myself pretty busy over my week off, between the book group, movies, out catching up with folks and enjoying a drink, more movies and also a lot of wandering around enjoying the burst of good weather, ambling around the city and also down the coast, taking a shedload of photos as I did so (about 2.5 gigs worth of pics in a few days, I'll need another week off to sort them!), which has kept me occupied and active instead of sitting around brooding, so its been helpful. Walking past Edinburgh University the other day I decided to take some snaps of the skaters and skateboarders there - its a popular area for it in Bristo Square in front of the Uni. Before you think I am getting all arty with the move to black and white photography, I had been down in the Royal Mile earlier in the day taking some architecture pics and moved to B&W for those as I think it suits some buildings better and had taken several pics of the skaters before I realised I hadn't changed back to colour mode.





Yes, I could avoid that altogether by shooting in colour then greyscaling in Photoshop afterwards, but I think that's never as good as shooting in B&W to begin with. I'm not sure if that's just a subjective opinion because if I greyscale a colour pic I'll always know it started out colour, but anyway, if I want B&W then I'll shoot that way rather than change it on the computer later (besides I do very little modification of my pics, I'm a Gonzo photographer, I take pics of things I see and try to reproduce what caught my attention, not spend 6 hours filtering and altering it in Photoshop, not that I have anything against that, but its just not what I normally do, I like to keep my pics fairly honest as photographs and not overly manipulate them other than tweak contrast or cropping, things I'd do back in my dark room days at college).





So the upshot was I took several pics before I realised I was in B&W mode then looked at the images on the camera's screen and thought, you know what, I think this scene looks cooler in B&W, so I kept it that way. And ended up doing a bunch more B&W as well, not done much monochrome since my college years when I did my own prints (back in the days of actual film with my ancient but highly serviceable Praktica) and I suddenly found myself thinking, why haven't I done more B&W in the digital years? I used to love the way monochrome can bring a different light to some subjects and yet here I was doing hundreds of photos a year onto my Flickr and hardly any in B&W, like I had forgotten about it. I think I just revived my taste for it...