This House Rocks

… on photography and photographers in Edinburgh…

The very pretty gate of Rock House, right at the stairs to Calton Hill from Regent Street (Road? Road is in London, no?)

Yeah, had a creative moment when figuring out the title for this posting… But I’ve always wanted to write a posting on how this city seems to inspire photographers. To start with the little things: about 50% of my class mates  told me right at the beginning of the year that they wanted to use the time here to work on their photography skills, or to start with photography at all. And then we all joined the University’s photo society (and never went to the meetings…). Instead we go on photo trips within the city or to places nearby and share information about techniques and equipment. Then the city seems to be full of aspiring amateur photographers. Wherever I go I see people that don’t just take the usual souvenir photos but seem to be really into it. No wonder, considering how beautiful and – yes –picturesque “she” (the city) is.

Then the fact that I like about 100000 random things on facebook brought me to another story. Just around the corner from my place, there’s a very pretty old house which used to host generations of photography pioneers – Rock House Studio. Among the most famous ones were David Octavius Hill and Robert Adamson (wiki), who were among the fist ones to experiment with the medium of photography. How I found out: Rankin (we all know him from Germany’s Next Top Model^^) had his portrait taken here, just a few weeks ago, in the old calotype style, just the way Hill and Adamson were working, and posted about that on his facebook page. (Fionnbharr O’Suillheabain/Alex Boyd). The whole story will be on ITV, I hope, I won’t miss it/haven’t already missed it. Running into Rankin on the way to the supermarket would have been kind of cool, though… And finally last week, I was exploring backyards and “closes” off the Royal Mile, bumped into a photo shooting for Brooks Brothers and let the crew make fun of me… When I got there I first spotted three handsome young men in suits standing like statues in the the pouring rain, but then they decided to interrupt the shooting because of the rain and we were all standing in that little doorway to wait for the weather to get better, I was holding my camera, and so we got there….

But to come back to inspiration. I keep spotting beautiful details that make me want to come back later with my camera, wherever I go. I still stare at beautiful views, buildings, colours, the light. Especially the light, I feel I learned so much about colours and lights. Awww, beautiful Edinburgh! <3 Just need to work more on techniques etc!