Har Harr

There is a lot to be said for the cold and the rain to bring out a darker side of the imagination. Mid May, and I was expecting a slow incline of daylight and a steady blooming of heat. We should all know better. Five degrees and a lead sky. The Arctic howl of December through our clothes, a flowing mire beneath our jaded shoes.  The worst shock to the system is the disappointment, that we have to wait in suspense for our summer to ever arrive.

The upshot is that I started touring my archive of the images I took over Winter for some consolation on how bad it can get. We need no reminding of the dark once the sun is baking our pavements again so I am happy to post them here for now. Tragically enough, these images of a very sombre Edinburgh Haar are only about a month old. Scotland, as ever, defies the definition of Winter.

Down in Leith it is business as usual. A busy football Saturday, pubs rammed. The opposing ends of Hibernian Stadium invisible to each other through a thick wall of white, according to reports. Shops' shutters up, dogs to be walked, traffic lights green, football practice at 10, paper supplements, bus stop queue, Kirkgate pigeons, shopping bags at the bar, traffic lights red. And all the while, a heavy silence. Like holding the world on mute as the white envelopes everything. I walk around and see some of the most banal things blown out of proportion. A woman and her dog, burnished like two spots of ink on canvas. A flock of seagulls, noiseless from nowhere, bluster limply overhead like debris in a gale. A father and daughter emerge kicking a football in the Links. Shrouded in a cavern of grey, their breath on the air like coal trains as they run directionless, only to be swallowed again into nothing.

And a solitary figure, who seems more at home in the blankness than anyone. Hi Rab:-p

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Scotland I love you...

...but you are hard work!

I am taking a break! I'm kicking off my boots and putting on my bare feet and heading off to Spain to enjoy a drink with every meal and some weather you can make sense of. I shall return with stories and photos galore I say. I am wielding not one but two film cameras on my travels. Not a pixel in sight.

I am overdue a few updates which I shall hopefully tackle on my return. The last crazy month has seen some production images for several shows which are starting touring. Some fabulous coverage of events from the NTS, Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre and the SCO, on top of the rest!

All going well I might also have a snapshot of a current personal project I begun at the start of the year. All very exciting stuff!

But get me out of here quick.

Adios a todos!

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Be Wide

Last week saw the annual musical mélange of Wide Days descend on Edinburgh at Teviot Row. It is a two day consortium of speakers, panels, workshops, showcases and of course, blaring music: a hot bed of music industry knowledge to serve the uninitiated.

I was invited to cover the main events of the day-time panels and discussions. As the proverbial fly on the wall, it is hard not to pick up more than just photos. There was a lot of very solid knowledge from very sharp and sympathetic minds. Gems even that I could take on board for my own approach to creativity. First that it is a business, given,  but second that it is important to share the workload and get hard hitting feedback when you can. Creativity is not a path to be gone alone, and there was a great vibe about the event that lit some flames and got everyone's minds on building up the community.

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A Little Fun

Its not everyday the photographer gets a mention! When a picture is worth 1,000 words (on the old exchange rates anyway), there tends to be little editorial real-estate for the creative process behind the scenes. And rightly so, articles can be in depth enough without needing to know about the textile content of the backdrop materials and nasal shadowing of the subject. But interestingly, the interview and the photoshoot are almost as enjoyable as the finished product.

This flattering quote is from Julian Corrie in his New Blood feature in this month's Skinny. The shoot in question was arranged by the creative folks at The Skinny at the Glasgow Science Centre. If you haven't visited or don't know anything about it, be sure of this: it is a world of fun. You could end up having too good a time. And so it went. Legging it through wonderful, interactive floors, setting up images at instruments, mirrors and displays and getting distracted by all the toys. Me and the staff bombarded Julian with sponge balls and built him a fort out of tetris foam blocks. Hardly what you can call "effort", when you're splitting your sides.

Go on and have a listen to his work here

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