Double Selfie

I’m not much of one for a selfie, I generally prefer to stay on the other side of the camera lens, although I noticed I have taken more in recent months while going through my cancer treatment (no idea why, just have). I did like this one though – Stephanie and I were enjoying the annual West End Craft Fair, which is in the burial ground of Saint John’s Church (buy some nice, handmade earrings next to the tomb of Ebeneezer McCurdie, died 1838!).

Double Selfie

Stephanie realised she had bought something from this crafter the year before, and they were chatting away. I noticed the oval mirror hanging to the side and just thought we could get a double mirror selfie with that. I couldn’t really see the camera screen properly and look at the mirror at the same time, so the framing is a bit off, but nonetheless, I like this pic.

Retro Robots

The annual Christmas market and winter wonderland fair are running now in Edinburgh around the Mound and Princes Street Gardens, and of course I took a few photographs on the way home from work one evening. It’s not the easiest to shoot – a tripod is useless in the busy market so it means hand-held after dark photography and I don’t normally use the flash either, so a fair chunk simply don’t come out, but sometimes you get lucky, and this series I shot of a traditional toy stall with hand-carved wooden toys, the old tin-type toys, clockwork wind-ups and these gloriously retro, 1950s style robots. I was really pleased considering I was shooting hand held, no flash and at night that these came out so clearly

retro robots 01

In fact they got picked up by one of my favourite sites, BoingBoing, who ran a couple of them on their blog, which was rather nice

retro robots 02

wonderful toys

I do love the traditional toy stall, doesn’t matter how old you get there is something still magical about them that makes you feel like a five year old craving Christmas. And on a cold, dark, December night in winter how nice is to see this splash of colour, life and magic?