As we move through late November and towards December, it is now dark here before four in the afternoon, so I have a bit more time for some night photography!
The Malt Shovel pub at night, on the steep, curving Cockburn Street, which links the Old Town to the New Town
Cockburn Street after dark
The bottom end of Cockburn Street, viewed from Waverley Bridge
Lady waiting to cross the Royal Mile at night
Classic British telephone boxes at night, on the Royal Mile
Looking towards the junction of Southbridge with the Royal Mile
Garden of Remembrance at night, Princes Street Gardens. In the background you can see the historic Bank of Scotland building lit up red for Armistice Day (see closer up shot in the next pic). As ever you can see the larger versions on my Flickr.
hand crocheted poppies decorating the railings outside Gorgie Parish Church for the Remembrance Weekend.
The autumn colours are coming out more and more – some recent, unseasonably warm weather may almost fool us into thinking it is more late August than early October, but the seasons continue regardless.
With autumn coming in and night falling earlier each evening, I have been trying out the camera on my new phone, which has a much better low-light camera than my previous one. While obviously not as sharp as using my big camera on its tripod, I’m fairly impressed with these freehand phone camera night shots.
Edinburgh International Film Festival 2023 – Superposition
Directed by Karoline Lyngbye,
Starring Marie Bach Hansen, Mikkel Boe Følsgaard, Mihlo Olsen
(Danish language, with English subtitles)
Stine (Marie Bach Hansen), a frustrated writer, and her partner Teit (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard), a broadcaster and podcaster, have decided to quit the rat race of life in urban Copenhagen, and are moving with their young boy, Nemo (Mihlo Olsen), to try living for a year completely isolated in a designer cabin, near a lake in the Swedish forest, with Stine planning to use the peace and space to get back to her novel, while Teit is recording regular podcasts on their experiences, although since they are too remote for any web access, he has to put his shows on a USB drive then mail them to his radio station and the people bankrolling their lifestyle change. It will not surprise anyone to learn that their plans to not go quite as expected, and they start to learn more about one another than they anticipated – in a rather unusual way.
Right from the beginning there’s a lovely visual style to Superposition by cinematographer Sine Vadstrup Brooker, with a view of the calm lake waters, the line of the opposite shore bisecting the middle of the screen, the water reflecting the trees and the clouds above, but tilted ninety degrees to the side, slowly rotating back to the more normal viewpoint; a beautiful image, but also one that whispers of something not right, something being out of kilter, in this remote location.
At first they settle in quite happily, exploring the very cool, designer cabin and surrounding woods and lake, their wee boy and dog, Tarzan, happily running around while they settle in. As Tein sets up the microphones for his first recording, however, the cracks start to appear, as an at-first genial discussion between him and Stine about why they came here and what they hope to get out of it, produces answers Tein isn’t too happy with. Stine points out that they agreed to be honest in these recorded discussions, something he likes to pride himself on, but we can already see that actually he’s quite sensitive to honesty when it concerns him.
This is all handled in a nice, quiet, intimate manner between the two characters, no histrionics, no shouting. It’s also a nice bit of storytelling economy – we get the gist of their relationship and troubles (he had an affair, cheating on her, she resents giving up her plans to be the Great Young Novelist she was earmarked by the writing establishment to become in favour of raising a family) in one short scene, along with the obvious fact that both are also creatives and seem a bit competitive on that front as well as on their personal relationship. It’s deftly done, no flashbacks or long expositions, we get it all in this quiet, neat way, letting us into the characters and their lives.
So far you could be mistaken for thinking this is going to be one of those films where people with troubles escape into nature and find the struggle to live in it helps them put their personal problems in perspective, and overcome them. But this is more “glamping” than really back to nature, whatever the pair of them think (fancy cabin, electricity, computers, music, wine, hardly roughing it). And there is something else going on – they glimpse another family of three, on the far shore of the lake.
This surprises them as the location was sold as being totally remote, with no-one else near them. Stine in particular seems very put out by this (given the vast spaces around them, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for her here, she seems more petulant than anything else). They try to avoid these others, which should be easy as they are away on the other side of the water, but of course, we know sooner or later something will bring them in contact with one another. And when they find these others are, well, them, they are understandably confused. Why are dopplegangers of them here in this remote forest? Where did they come from, what do they do?
(Director Karoline Lyngbye, on the right, talking to the film festival audience, pic from my Flickr)
Although you can see little hints of the likes of Peele’s Us, this is a different beast, and uses this encounter to further explore the damaged relationships between the main couple in a rather novel way. Starting as a drama, Superposition mixes in elements of science fiction, thriller and horror into its DNA, and combines it with some lovely cinematography (riffing cleverly on reflections and duos), while scenes with the characters interacting with their duplicates are very well done (the director explained they had some of the visual effects team on hand during the actual filming to make sure it was done right, a laborious task involving multiple takes of scenes).
An intriguing, clever and beautifully shot piece of cinema from Denmark.
Kayaker rowing along the Union Canal, and under the Walker Bridge at Polwarth. Spotted on my walk to work, so paused to grab a very brief video clip on the phone camera.
I study nuclear science
I love my classes
I got a crazy teacher
He wears dark glasses
Things are going great, and they’re only getting better
I’m doing alright, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades
I gotta wear shades
I’ve got a job waiting for my graduation
Fifty thou a year’ll buy a lot of beer
Things are going great, and they’re only getting better
I’m doing alright, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades
I gotta wear shades
Well I’m heavenly blessed and worldly wise
I’m a peeping-tom techie with x-ray eyes
Things are going great, and they’re only getting better
I’m doing alright, getting good grades
The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades
I gotta wear shades
Timbuk3.
People watching along the Union Canal on a very warm, sunny, spring evening, so many people in sunglasses, which always makes me think of the classic 80s pop song, “Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades” by Timbuk3.
Walking home from my book group recently, darkness had just fallen. I didn’t have my main tripod with me, but did have my wee Gorilla mini-tripod, with its bendy legs, and thought some scenes of people waiting for the evening trams in Saint Andrew Square would look good in monochrome, so I sat the mini-tripod on a handy post to raise it up, set the timer and crossed my fingers…
As I was zooming in more on the people waiting on the platform, I heard the rumbling of an approaching tram, so I left the camera on a long exposure, so you get that nice contrast between the stationary platform and people standing still, and the blurred motion of the tram passing them, which I quite liked:
A second tram arrived while I was still shooting, so I got a twin-tram snap for the last pic. Not the greatest, but not bad for semi-improvised night shots. As ever, for the larger versions, click on the pics to see them on the Woolamaloo Flickr stream.
I switched back to shooting in colour for this pic, just a couple of moments walk from the previous ones, looking towards the buildings on the south side of Saint Andrew Square, but also managed to get one of the cherry blossom trees into frame, the branches loaded with sakura, hanging over the railings of the now-closed gardens:
Some huge cranes were catching the evening light recently, which drew my roving eye to take a few snaps, zooming in closer until it looked like giant Meccano sets in the sky. The declining evening sunlight also made them cast enormous shadows onto some of the modern buildings at the end of the Union Canal too, which was just begging for some monochrome shots.
As April trundles on, we’ve had the usual mix of weather in Scotland, from beautiful, warm (ish), sunny spring days to howling wind, grey skies, rain and temeperatures suddenly dropping back to feel like February. We do get a variety here… Regardless, nature carries on to her own timetable, and there have been welcome signs that, despite bursts of colder weather, spring is settling in, and bringing with it a rebirth of colour.
I loved these white Daffies with the yellow centre, catching the evening light in the old boneyard of Dalry Cemetery
The cherry blossoms are coming out too – although it varies all over the city. Some have had petals blooming for a couple of weeks or more, others are barely starting to bud, others again are in almost full bloom. It’s remarkable how much it varies across the town.
I found this fallen bloom on the pavement, fallen from a vine running along a garden wall, covered in raindrops, the soft, silken petals in stark contrast to the hard, dark of the asphalt paving.
The Daffies, as ever, provide a wonderful burst of colour after the long, dark, winter months, like miniature, floral sunbursts
Walking home from a friend’s theatre event earlier this week, turned the corner on the Mound, to find this fabulous visa: the Church of Scotland Assembly Buildings, Edinburgh Castle, and above them, mighty Jupiter, king of planets, and below it, Venus, shining incredibly brightly over these historic landmarks.
Sadly coming from the theatre, I wasn’t carrying my tripod – I braced the camera against a post to try and steady it for this rough and ready night shot, just to try and capture that incredible moment. You can also see Jupiter and Venus in this quick shot taken a few moments earlier on the Royal Mile (again bracing camera against a post, so not as good as if I had the tripod with me, but needs must…) – on the far left of the picture, you can see them clearly, shining above the ancient buildings of the Royal Mile.
I do love living here, I love the incredible sights the city often offers up, by light of day or by the night, winter or summer, but even after all these years living in Edinburgh, this grand, old dame can still surprise me with a sudden, magical sight that just makes you stop, takes the breath away, leaving you forgetting about the world and worries for a moment to just drink in a wonderful visual feast.
