View From The Museum

Posted on June 13, 2026 by Joe

The roof terrace garden atop the National Museum of Scotland on Chamabers Street, is one of my favourite places to take in views across my city. The modern extension of the Museum, which sits right across the road from historic Greyfriars Kirk, has a roof terrace which, like the Museum itself, is free for anyone to access, visitor or native alike.

(looking south to Bristo Square, where you can see some modern University of Edinburgh buildings on the left, the Hogwarts-like Teviot student union in the centre, and the domed rotunda of McEwan Hall on the right – where I had my graduation ceremony, a lifetime ago…

It’s not all historic, old, handsome buildings – there are also rather uglier intrusions onto the nearby skyline, such as these 1970s Brutalist towers Edinburgh University dumped on the city, after demolishing parts of the old George Square. They look rather better in a B&W photo than they do in reality!

Looking west to the old Greyfriars Kirk.

The roof terrace, being right in the heart of the Old Town, also offers fine views to Edinburgh Castle, atop its huge, volcanic rock.

Above – looking over the rooftops to nearby George IV Bridge. Below, looking northwards, the “crown” spire of Saint Giles Cathedral on the Royal Mile clearly visible on the skyline.

Normally you have to look up to admire the handsome dome of the Old College Building (which is adjacent to the original, Victorian-era part of the Museum, but from the roof terrace you get a different perspective.

Looking along the roof terrace garden of the National Museum of Scotland

A brief video panorma of the view from the roof terrace, starting off looking towards Edinburgh Castle, standing sentinel above the city as it has for centuries, then panning north and east, across the Old Town skyline, then zooming out into the Firth of Forth beyond, where huge ships are carrying enormous, yellow structures for new offshore windfarms out to sea from the Port of Leith.

City of Night

Posted on December 15, 2021 by Joe

Being December, it is now dark here well before four in the afternoon; while most people bemoan the very few, short hours of daylight we get in our wee northern kingdom at this time of year, I rather like it and tend to use it to get some nocturnal shots of my city.

Project Coffee and Cafe Grande after dark, in the Bruntsfield area of the city. There’s something about the dark, winter night outside and bright, warm lights and people inside the cafes and diners and bars that just cries out for a good black and white photo. Slightly rough as these were all taken freehand on the way home from work, so no tripod with me.

Fountain Bar at night, Fountainbridge

Blue note: corner shop lit up brightly against the winter night, Fountainbridge.

“Ghost” strolling near the benches by the Union Canal. I love the way long exposures capture the surroundings clearly, but a moving person or object becomes blurred and translucent, like a ghostly, spectral figure, which sometimes quite suits the photo.

Homes With A View

Tenements overlooking Bruntsfield Links, one of the ancestral homes of the game of golf (there's still a putting green there right in front of the apartments). Always coveted one of these flats, but way out of my price range. The old Golf Tavern can be seen on the far right of the upper pic, and a closer view of it in the second pic.

Busy junction at Tollcross at night, and the King's Theatre, with a crowd waiting to go in for a show.

Cinematic Nocture: people waiting at the bus stop under the marquee over the entrance to the lovely, old Cameo Cinema. I miss marquees on most moden cinemas, to me they were always part of the magic, all lit up, the regularly changing signs telling you what films were screening, I like that the Cameo still has it.

Edinburgh Castle during a light show, seen above and behind the old Victorian tenement buildings around Bruntsfield Links and the Meadows, because you just get views like this in Edinburgh as you casually stroll across a park path after work...

Winter Scenes

Posted on January 7, 2021 by Joe

Monumental Sunset 02 — The Scott Monument, lower half already in shadow even in the mid afternoon as the sun is so low in the winter sky, the upper half basking the golden honey glowof the winter light.

Fortress of Winter 01 — Across the end of December and the start of January the ice and snow came to Edinburgh. Walking in the frigid, sharp air, the winter sun so low in the sky it casts as much in the way of shadows as it does light, and that light is stretched out, golden-amber. This is the sort of thing you see just going for a stroll in this magnificent city in winter…. (as ever click the pics to see the full sized versions of my Flickr)

Princes Street Gardens, Winter's Day 014 — The charming head gardner’s cottage in a wintry Princes Street Gardens, but these days better known as Great Aunt Lizzie’s, after being used as the location in a popular kid’s storytelling show.

Winter Walk 04 — “I got you”. Friend comforting a chum as they walk along the snowy towpath of the Union Canal

Princes Street Gardens, Winter's Day 013 — Warming coffee on a freezing day

Princes Street Gardens, Winter's Day 02 — Winter promenading in Princes Street Gardens during the snowy weather

Wintry Meadows 09 — A splash of colour against the white snow – normally I like to shoot in B&W for my people watching pics, but with so much monochrome caused by the snow I felt like switching to colour (especially with such vibrant colours contrasting against all the white)

Wintry Meadows 06 — Some enjoy a stroll, the crisp snow making that satisfying crunch-crunch-crunch noise underfoot, others decide to sit, chat and warm up with hot cuppas in the Meadows

Wintry Meadows 02 — In Edinburgh we have a vast extinct volcano, Arthur’s Seat, rearing up right in the middle of our city – you can go hill-walking here without even leaving the centre of town! And what a backdrop it makes….

Winter Walk 03 — Who cares about the cold, we’re happy!! Smiling couple walking along by the Union Canal

Winter Walk 011 — Reading as the snow begins to fall once more

Winter Walk 010 — Hot drinks on a cold day, from the floating cafe-barge, The Watershed, a regular haunt of mine on my walks, here serving up hot coffees and hot chocolate as the snow falls afresh

Ice Swan 01 — One of the mute swans on the Union Canal, on the only small stretch of remaining free water, bordering the ice that covers most of the rest of the canal. The setting sun’s burnished colours can be seen reflected in the dusk waters

Ice Swan 02 — And there she goes, raising herself out of the water and back onto the ice, as dusk falls along the canal

Sunset Along the Canal 01 — Winter sunset along the Union Canal (frozen in the frigid temperatures), glimpsed between two tenement blocks on opposite sides of the Walker Bridge over the canal at Polwarth. My view on my walk home yesterday afternoon, breath misting in the cold air, crunch of ice underfoot, sounds of people enjoying a walk nearby, the soft calls of the mute swans, and these colours firing the skies. Glorious.

Sunset Along the Canal 02 — Skeletal winter trees and chimneys silhoutted against a fiery sunset sky on a winter’s day.

Night Moves

Posted on November 2, 2019 by Joe

With the clocks going back it is darker earlier each evening here now. Some find this depressing, the long, dark nights. I quite like it, and it is a good chance for some night photography! Sometimes I am out with the tripod taking them properly, other times they are often improvised, taken on the way home from work when I have no tripod handy so I go handheld for rough shots or use things like railings and pillars to sit the camera on to steady it in lieu of the tripod. This is an improvised shot by the Union Canal, the steel skeleton of a new building under construction on one of the last brownfield sites left from the former Scottish and Newcastle Brewery complex which used to dominate this area for years.You can see the flat-topped railing I used to sit the camera on to steady it in the image:

Another improvised shot on the same night by the Union Canal, bracing the camera against a mooring post to get this image of this houseboat at night – how cosy does it look against the cold, dark night? And below that a short from just a few feet further along looking to the old Leamington Lift Bridge.

Rough handheld shot in lowlight mode at dusk in Bruntsfield, looking into the windows of Project Coffee – I think for this kind of pic the roughness of the freehand shot actually works:

Zebra crossing at night, Polwarth, another freehand shot walking home from work:

Another handheld shot, this is the Telfer Subway at night:

Heading down through the lower part of the New Town to my book group, had been raining a little and the cobbled roads by Drummond Place had that glistening look to them under the street lights:

Walking through the old boneyard of Saint Cuthbert’s at night – peaceful very dark and quiet and yet only a few steps from busy Lothian Road and Princes Street, bustling with people and traffic, yet down here the quiet of old tombs, the crunch of fallen autumn leaves and so much darker than it looks in these pictures where I could do long exposures. The things you spot, different little realms just a few steps away from busy main streets, if you go a few steps off the main thoroughfare in Edinburgh:

And look a the view of the Castle you get from the old graveyard:

And here’s one taken with a new toy, a cheap LED light panel that fixes to the camera’s flash gun shoe – I turned it on and took a walk through the old graveyard near my flat. The middle is deliberately allowed to become overgrown to become a mini urban wildlife area, and during the day you can hear all sorts of sounds, from twigs snapping to branches rustling. At night you hear even more of it but can’t see the animals making them, just hear the sounds from the undergrowth between the older tombstones. In the darkness of the walled boneyard, you can imagine how creepy that feels, as if something is following you through the cemetery. For added effect I took these on the way home on Halloween:

The blue fortress of winter…

Posted on November 30, 2017 by Joe

One from my photo archives, taken on this day in 2010, during the very heavy winter and snowfall we had that year, and reposted here to mark 30th November, Saint Andrew’s Day:

I came out of my book group that evening, Edinburgh was covered in snow. And the Castle atop its great rock above the city was illuminated Saltire-blue to mark the day of our nation’s patron saint. The skyline of my gorgeous city is remarkable at any time, but on this winter’s night, the Castle in blue, the city draped in snow, it was magical, and I just stood there in the cold taking it in. These are the sorts of sights you just come across living in Edinburgh, no wonder I love it so much. As I was out at my book group I wasn’t carrying a tripod, I improvised by jamming the camera between railings overlooking the Gardens to steady it, and with so much streetlight being reflected by the snow it was enough to get a clear night shot. I didn’t expect it to come out so clearly, being an improvised shot, but it’s digital so not wasting film, may as well try, because sometimes they don’t work, other times you capture a moment like this forever…

Springtime in Scotland

Posted on March 8, 2015 by Joe

It’s early springtime in Scotland. That would explain the snow on the Castle’s roofs and battlements then…

Castle and spire

Posted on January 12, 2015 by Joe

Another shot from recent night-time round of photo-taking – I was actually taking something else, then noticed if I moved the tripod round a little, perhaps I could fit in the both the spire of Saint Cuthberts and the western flank of Edinburgh Castle. So I had a go and it seemed to work…

Yuletide Edinburgh

Posted on December 21, 2014 by Joe

It’s Edinburgh, it’s a few days before Christmas, and with the short days, long nights and the sun have set before 4 in the afternoon it’s the time of year to enjoy Edinburgh’s nocturnal aspect, and how lovely Edinburgh is in the long, dark, winter nights – here’s the view from North Bridge, which connects Old and New Towns, spanning the valley between them, with the massive Waverley railway station way below (you can see the station’s glowing glass roof on the lower right of this pic; on the far left the Fruitmarket Gallery right above the tracks on the edge of the station, City Art Centre across from it, up towards the centre the domed Bank of Scotland building and behind it Edinburgh Castle standing sentinel above its city. Down on the right, centre the neo-Classical National Gallery of Scotland – as always click to see the larger versions on my Flickr site):

And a close up on Edinburgh Castle at night – if you look at the larger version you can even see people standing on the battlements looking down into the city. This was about twenty minutes after the sun had set, and the western skies were splashed with magnificent reds and purples silhouetting the floodlit Castle for just a few, brief, magical moments, before the skies darken for the long night:

And one more of the Castle, this time taken from down in Princes Street Gardens, which gave me the angle to get Ramsay Gardens (the very expensive apartments right next to the Castle on the left) and the big Christmas tree on the Mound into the shot):

The annual festive fair and market is in the Gardens and the Mound at this time of year. Right by the towering Gothic rocket of the Scott Monument is a huge fairground ride for Christmas, basically like an old chair-o-plane ride on steroids, the difference being when this starts to spin around swinging out the hanging seats below the canopy it goes high – very high. Take a look here – the Monument is over 60 metres in height and you can see the ride goes up only a few metres short of our great literary monument, couldn’t resist trying to get an angle to fit in both, glad dad gave me a small gizmo to mount on top of the tripod, little ball-socket thing that you can loosen and tilt to easily through a variety of angles, very, very handy):

Looking along the lower part of the Gardens towards the flank of the National Galleries of Scotland – the part you can see here, the large, brightly lit plate glass windows are actually underground for the most part. The main building sit on top of the mound, but it extends underneath the plaza in front of the building, including this side which is exposed by the valley of the Gardens, and here there is a cafe, restaurant, meeting rooms and more, plus a connection to the nearby Royal Scottish Academy, which you can see the edge of above and to the right:

And here’s a view of Princes Street Gardens with the festive fair and Christmas market, taken from the steps leading down the Mound:

I love this old double-decker carousel (or gallopers, if you prefer the nice, old terms for such rides), gorgeous looking, ornately decorated piece of work:

Over in Saint Andrew Square there are more market stalls, a circular ice rink in the centre, with a round temporary bar in the middle of the rink, and also this splendid old Spiegeltent theatre:

Here’s a view of the circular ice rink from the small footbridge they added over it:

And there’s an ice rink – a more traditionally shaped one – in the Gardens right by the Scott Monument too:

And of course as well as food and drink stalls there are many selling items of all sorts from clothes to jewelry to, of course, Christmas decorations:

All combines to fairly brighten up the long, cold, dark winter nights.

The blood red fortress of the night

Posted on November 1, 2014 by Joe

Crossing North Bridge (which spans the deep valley between Edinburgh’s Old Town and the Georgian-era New Town) a few nights ago I noticed that the Castle was illuminated in this deep red shade – as it turned out it was to mark the annual Poppy Appeal leading up to Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday, although given it was the week leading to Halloween the colour scheme worked quite well for that too… I was going from work to my book group, so didn’t have the tripod with me, so improvised, setting up a long exposure on the camera, setting the timer then sitting the camera on the parapet of the bridge. Not ideal – it is angled and with double decker buses rumbling over it frequently it vibrates, not what you want when trying to take a long exposure night shot, took three or four but only this one came out reasonably (click to see larger versions on my Flickr):

Scotland decides

Posted on September 18, 2014 by Joe

So today I and millions of fellow Scottish citizens decide on the issue of staying in the Union or returning to a state of independence, the most important constitutional decision in three centuries. I said months ago I thought it would be far closer than the previously (over)confident No camp thought it would be, but I had no idea just how close it would become this close to the wire… I’ll cast my vote first thing before going to work, no way I will miss this. I decided a long time ago how I will vote, not on nationalistic lines, or from jingoism or feelings towards Westminster but mostly drawing on what I think is the most important thing, what I consider to be the most democratic outcome for Scottish citizens, that gives us the fairest form of democratic represenation.

(aircraft vapour trails crossing above Edinburgh Castle, creating a Saltire-like image, a floating, ephemeral version of the Scottish flag in a blue sky above the great castle at the heart of the capital)

I have held off from talking about it here because far too many people from politicians in London who ignored most of it for two years (until recently!) to that useless parasite of modern society, the opinionated but brainless celebrity, have been busy trying to tell people how they should think and vote. And while I have (surprise) strong opinions, as I tend to do about most things (Neil Gaiman once commented I was opinionated, but in the good way), I have no desire to try and influence anyone. This is not a decision anyone should try to make for you, not foolish, interfering foreign politicians (yes, Mr Tony Abbot, you and others), not the London government, not celebrities (especially those who don’t even reside in the UK most of the time), this is our decision, for Yes or for No, our nation, our ancient nation, and our choice.

And afterwards… Afterwards, whichever way the result goes, no rancour, no discrimination, no in-fighting, we are, as the grand old Scots saying goes, all Jock Tamson’s Bairns. And recall the words of our great Scots makkar and artist, Alasdair Gray, “work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.” Whichever way the vote goes, work for ever more change – because change doesn’t stop because life is change and we can’t stop it as long as we live – change that makes for a better nation, because our nation is ancient and it was passed to us and we will pass it on to others, hopefully changed for the better each generation.

Sunset city

Posted on November 6, 2013 by Joe

It’s now fully dark by the time I leave work, but I shot this just before the clocks went back, just after sunset, shot from the Northbridge which strides across the deep valley between the Old Town and New Town, Edinburgh Castle atop it’s great volcanic rock, silhouetted against the setting sun. I love the views I get simply walking home from work in my city…

From the other side of the Forth

Posted on May 12, 2013 by Joe

Last weekend went off with chum for drive over the Forth, ended up at Loch Leven (where, among others things, the castle on an island in the loch was once prison to that unfortunate lady, Mary Queen of Scots), then over to the Fife coastal route back home, paused for the traditional bag of chips on the seafront at Burntisland, then head for home. When you follow the coastal road out of Burntisland it goes up quite high and gives spectacular views across the mighty Firth of Forth, not least towards the wonderful Forth Rail Bridge, which rises from the waters like some Victorian steel sea beast:

That same vantage point also offers views of my home, Edinburgh, from a different perspective, viewed from the opposite side of this vast river which cuts its way right into the geology and coast of the land. In this one (if you click to go to the larger versions you can see on my Flickr pic) you can just make out Edinburgh Castle on the centre right of the photo, glimsped from the Fife side of the river looking over to the capital:

And in this view of the harbour, docks and new buildings around the port of Leith you can also see the Royal Yacht Britannia on the far left. Images are not as clear as I’d like but on max zoom shooting through a lot of atmosphere and over water so they were never going to be as sharp as I would like. Still a wonderful view to see parts of my city from that angle.

And here’s the distinctive shape of Arthur’s Seat, the summit and the outline of the Salisbury Crags, the vast extinct volcano which sits at the heart of Edinburgh and is visible for miles around, it and the the volcanic ridge it caused (on which the Old Town perches and the Castle sits at the highest point) and the other hills help give Edinburgh its spectacular background, like few other cities in the world. Also keeps you fit walking and cycling up and down all those slopes! That’s why we need so many pubs to take a little rest in… You can see from this why this area has been settled for thousands of years – Edinburgh Castle is an ancient and imposing fortress, but millennia before it was built our Iron Age ancestors – and probably even earlier peoples – had fortifications on the side of Arthur’s Seat, offering them security, natural fortifications and views across the land and river to Fife, and even down the coast to North Berwick. You can see from this why an early people would choose to settle there.

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