Autumn is not quite here fully yet, the trees are still mostly leafed in greenery, but more and more gold and brown leaves are showing, the pavements have more fallen leaves creating a crunching carpet underfoot. It may not be quite here yet, but autumn is knocking on summer’s door. I don’t mind – autumn in our northern kingdom, on a nice day, creates the most glorious colours, illuminated by a sunlight that is stretched out now to a soft, golden copper. Gorgeous.
The Fringe after dark…
Coming out of a Fringe show at the Teviot (the student union building for Edinburgh Uni, which resembles the Edinburgh branch of Hogwarts), I took some time to walk around Bristo Square and nearby George Square after dark, the area busy and lit up with food stalls and vans and housing temporary performance venues for many Fringe shows.
(above: “Hiya, Pals!” – Fringe banner hanging off Teviot at night during the festival. Below: McEwan Hall, where my graduation ceremony took place a lifetime ago, lit up during the festival)
It’s nearly August once more, and in Edinburgh that means the insane frenzy of the festivals: the Edinburgh International Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival, joining the Arts Festival and the already-running Edinburgh Jazz and Blues Festival.
It’s unbelievably busy – Edinburgh, as you might expect, is pretty full of visitors year-round, and especially in the spring and summer months, but then add the festival season on top of it, and it bursts at the seams. Simple things like trying to get across town becomes an exercise in frustration for locals trying to get to appointments or work, because the sheer numbers slow the bus service to a slow treacle trickle in the city centre, adding hugely to journey times. When you are off and can enjoy the sheer energy of the festivals, it’s amazing, when you live here and are trying to get to work or to a hospital appointment and it takes twice as long, that’s a bit different!
I was walking home from my book group the other evening, through Bristo Square at Edinburgh University. Normally an open space (often filled with skateboarders as well as students and tourists), it was now being set up for the Fringe with temporary venues for food, drink and box offices, while nearby George Square Gardens is filled with temporary theatre structures. It was a rare rainy night – after a lot more hot, sunny weather than we normally get in Scotland, this was a dreich evening of dark, grey clouds and rain. But as I passed the illuminated Fringe show posters, the rain made the lights and colours reflect on the wet pavement, and it was begging for a few photos, so of course I stopped and stood there in the rain to take some pics.
Walking with a friend a few days ago, we passed down King’s Stables Road, which runs around the west of Castle Rock, then passes under the King’s Bridge, right below the Castle. The bridge is an old, stone structure, with a long, tunnel-like arch, and this saxophonist was playing some cool jazz under it.
I’ve seen some musicians play here before, including another jazz player (possibly the same chap) – it isn’t the best for busking in terms of footfall, compared to nearby streets, but the acoustics of that long, stone arch are incredible, especially to an instrument like a sax. And it makes for a cool pic…
This week I knew I had my (hopefully) final chemotherapy session (although I still have weeks on the horrible, toxic pills). On Monday the weather was gorgeous, so after going for the blood tests I have to do two days befor each chemo poison torture session, I went for a walk, got lunch, then walked more, and then more. All the way from Gorgie to Haymarket, to the West End of the New Town, then Saint Cuthbert’s and Princes Street Gardens (where I found to my delight the Nepali Scottish Mela was taking place), then round King’s Stables Road to the Grassmarket, West Port, then the Meadows and finally a well-earned seat in Cloisters for a rest, drink and read my book.
(Above: I was really pleaased with the way the focus turned out on this shot, the foreground sharp, the background in soft focus – this effect is called ‘bokeh’ – and the contrasting colours. There’s even a wee bee on a flower in the foreground. Below: another bokeh shot, the sharp flower in the foreground, the rearwards one in soft, blurred focus giving depth to the shot)
Of course the camera was also out for its stroll, and the light was so good (half the work done for taking a good pic is having the right light), and I took dozens of photos of everything, from street photography of people to architecture to flowers. Lots and lots of flowers, as it turned out.
(wee bee nestling inside a flower on the lower right)
I make no apology, the light made the colurs so vibrant, I kept taking more photos, stopping frequently when I saw more. In among this long, waking nightmare of my cancer year, the beautiful light and the colours of the flowers and the buzzing of bees landing on them (you can see some wee busy bees in several pics), all combined to make me feel alive and make me smile and just drink it in (and, me being me, to capture that light and colour in a photograph and share it).
(For the obvious reasons, I normally shoot in colour for flower pics, but some simply work better in monochrome, especially when they have that strong contrast being partly in the sunlight, partly in shadows. I don’t grayscale in Photoshop, if you see my pic in B&W it means I choose to shoot in B&W, I think the effect works better; also I don’t like monkeying with my photos in Photoshop like a lot of people do these days, I am old-fashioned, I think a photographer should do most of their work through the lens, picking mode, angle, composition as they shoot. That’s what photography is about, capturing what you see, not altering it all afterwards)
I absolutely tired myself out – my battery charge is very limited as the chemo screws your basic biochemstistry, the thing your body relies on, but it was worth it for a good day when I got to smile, to marvel at the beauty of the world and not think about bloody cancer for a few hours.
I’m not going to post all of them here – you can, as ever, check them all out on the Woolamaloo Fickr stream (now well north of 30, 000 pictures uploaded!), where you can also view the much larger versions, as well as my many other photos. Hope the flower images brightened up your day a little.
Resting after a long walk today, sitting in Cloisters (a favourite pub in an old Parsonage, which opened when I lived in a student flat round the corner, back in the day – our kitty used to follow us to the pub!). I noticed my reflection in this old mirror on the opposite wall of the pub, so naturally I took a snap. An unusual selfie! Pale Ale, pale male…
The slow motion effect on the phone is cool, but I rarely have any real use for it, However, on a recent recovery walk after the latest round of chemotherapy, I saw some of the University rowing team practising on the Union Canal near Harrison Park. So I nipped up onto the bridge and switched into slo-mo mode to capture this:
Apart from the interesting visuals, the sound is also slowed down, so turn the volume up – you can hear passing traffic, birds, the splashes of the oars, but all slowed down, and about halfway through the ding, ding, ding of a passing cycllist’s bell, but here deepened and drawn out by the slow-mo effect, giving an unusual sound.
My chum and I had a nice stroll along the annual Edinburgh Canal Festival the other weekend – after days of rainy showers, the sun came out, hot and strong that weekend. The festival itself felt smaller than previous years, not least because the Raft Race, which is what started the whole thing (existing before th festival grew around it) is now taking place on a different date, so it felt like crowds were smaller, there were less stands and fewer bands etc (and it all finished fairly early in the afternoon compared to previous years)
That said, we still had a great time, had some nice food and drinks (someone was making proper, fresh fruit-filled Pimms, a perfect summer sunny day drink!), enjoyed some of the bands and browsed the stalls, while taking pics (my friend wanted a go with the camera too).
Band entertaining the crowds around Lochrin Basin, where the canal now ends
Jazz band I have photographed at previous Canal Festivals was back, with some swinging tunes!
I was delighted to see our smiling mermaid was back again this year. We pointed her out to some small kids near us, and she waved to them – their faces lit up!
Even the barges became stages for entertainment!
Kayak fun!!
Ball right in the net!!!
I rarely appear in front of the camera, preferring to be behind the lens, but my chum wanted a go with the camera and took this shot of me, with a child apparently growing out of my head!
One of my swan chums decided to join me!!
Light waves reflecting off the sunny water onto the curved underside of the old, arched, stone bridge
And a slo-mo video of the same, because it was kind of gently mesmerising.
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.
So, after several weeks of walking and exercising a bit more each day since I was released from hospital, after the cancer surgery, I have been feeling stronger, appetite back (what a relief to not just be able to eat again without pain, but actually want to enjoy food, something I couldn’t do increasingly before the surgery, the tumours had blocked so much of my digestive system). I was starting to think maybe I could do a few hours back at work, cover some busy spells, ease myself back into things…
… But then it was time to start the chemotherapy, which, of course, knocks me back a bit physically. The irony of getting myself stronger and fitter after the heavy surgery, only to then get knocked back again by more treatment. Of course they had to wait for me to recover a bit before starting this, as the medication is, basically, toxic, and damaging to healthy cells, blood and nerves as well as any cancerous ones, I understand it, but it still feels bitterly ironic to get healthier to then undergo more that makes me feel worse.
(since the toxic meds of chemo can bugger up the immune response, it is time to mask up again on public transport, just to be safe)
It’s been a week now since the first full treatment, plugged in as the drugs are fed into you for a few hours, and then started the daily, very heavy pill regime too (also coming with its own list of side effects, from common and minor to terrifying, but fortunately rare). So far I have felt several side effects, but thankfully not the worst, and have still been able to continue to get out each day, although I tire more quickly (again – sigh, was just over that!). Has to be done, and will be months of this now, although fortunately only a few of the hours long version where I am plugged in, but the sad thing is it simply has to be done and endured.
To go through all the scariness, pain and trauma of major surgery than not take the chemo, well, would be basically gambling that it was all gone and never coming back. And you can’t take that risk, not with bloody cancer. So it’s this for the next few months. What a bloody awful year it has been so far. If it wasn’t for my family and friends being so damned supportive and protective I wouldn’t be able to cope with it, I’d just retreat into myself. I don’t know how anyone could get through this sort of thing without that vital support, it’s as important as the actual medical care.
Nocturnal streets offer a different face to the daytime version – a busy, central area now quiet, almost no people, little traffic, all but deserted
All the same buildings are there, the traffic lights wink and change in their pattern, regardless of the lack of vehicles passing, but it is all just somewhat different, while still being the same place. I think that’s one of the reasons I like taking long exposure shots at night, it just reveals a version of the city your eye can’t see.
These were all improvised shots – I was coming home late from the cinema, and so no tripod with me. I had ten minutes to wait for a bus, so I set the timer and sat the camera on bollards, ledges and posts to steady it for a few shots while I waited, and this is what I got, all around Edinburgh Quay, the modern buildings around where the Union Canal now ends (although originally it continued on over the main road to an inland port nearby).
I could be wrong, but I suspect this venue may well be some sort of drinking establishment…
