Taken during a great afternoon in which Stuart showed me some of the best bits of Edinburgh. Apparently some of the best bits are pubs!

Hope you like these Stuart?

Thanks for the tour!

This particularly great looking bunch of musicians spent some time with me on Sunday doing some photos for publicity. I had a great day with them and enjoyed Edinburgh on a beautiful bright February day. I loved photographing them and loved their willingness top trust me as I dragged them onto the monument at Calton Hill in their light shirts in the FREEZING afternoon. Thanks guys, I hope you love the pictures as much as I do.  This would have made a fantastic day for me anyway, but to hear them play was really special; these guys are totally amazing. They play traditional style tango, and the sound of them, their soulfulness, their tightness makes your heart ache. They are brilliant.

Orquestra Atipica de Edimburgo’s Facebook page.

These images were done with one flash and umbrella on a stand fixed and one handheld by my helper for the day, Gustavo. We were able to move that one quickly to balance the lighting without wasting time.

One problem taking advantage of a band for photographs is that they tend to wander off all the time; with a little platform and a 30 foot drop on 3 sides they tend to stick together. Mwwwwaaaahahaaaaaaaa

An Edinburgh band need to have Edinburgh behind them. I love that city so much.

Back now on terra firma. Those smiles are relief. I don’t care what the motivation was however, I’ll take advantage anyway:-) Note the tiny Princes Street behind them.

And now, double bassist extraordinaire, James…

How cool is James’s hair?

What poise, what a shirt!

One of my favourites, the lighting, background and pose are totally classic. This is in Gustavo’s wonderful cafe, looking out on Broughton street.

Every tango band needs someone in a red dress. None of the guys were up for it, so Petrea stepped up to the mark.  No the background of Arthur’s Seat and the crags isn’t stuck on. She was way up high and keepin’ it real!

Here’s Petrea in the cafe later. I love the background and the catchlights in her eyes.

As a guitarist myself, the most humbling part of the day was hearing Mark making this astounding lightly built flamenco instrument sing and wail so perfectly.

Note the resemblance to the amazing David Gilmour Pink Floyd fans. The graffiti is a shame here. I wondered about cloning it out, I’m just not sure. It’s a love/hate thing..

And finally Roberto. Master of the bandoneon. If any instrument can be said to be hard-wired to the listeners soul, this is it. This man and his music will break your heart, and you’ll love it.

Check Roberto’s chiselled looks.

And then, in the cafe, Petrea sang and everyone turned to watch and listen, you have to, she’s that good. Don’t go to see this band if you don’t want to fall in love with Petrea’s singing.

Just a few angles on the guys now:

And finally, helper-for-the-afternoon Gustavo and Petrea showed their skills dancing tango while the band played. Beautiful and amazing.

Check them out.

The best magic in photography seems so often to come from the unexpected. After watching the magnificent end-of-festival fireworks from Edinburgh’s Calton Hill, the folly suddenly struck me as looking fantastic (in the literal sense of the word) and so I quickly retrieved the beloved 40D and had a go. My “standard” 17-85 IS was on, and with its slow f4 aperture, it left the people too blurred. As is so often the case with Image Stabilised lenses it let me get a sharp folly handheld in almost no light, but it was giving a half second or so even on the 40D’s max ISO (3200) and so very blurry people. Anyone who reads my blog at all will guess which lens was quickly pressed into service, yes the Sigma 28 f1.8 prime. The fast aperture gave me 1/13th second, which was just usable. It’s not even vaguely a perfect picture, but it’s unprocessed, except a tiny bit of noise reduction and sharpening. It’s an atmospheric picture for me and captures a perfect moment on a special night.

Just get one of these lenses, I don’t regret buying mine for a moment:-)

Just one of the fireworks for fun:

John Miller Gray, 1850 – 1894. Art critic and first curator of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery1885

Born in Edinburgh Scotland in 1854, Patrick William Adam once said that he “was inspired to paint by the lush emerald landscapes of his homeland. The son of a well-known lawyer, Patrick chose a career in the arts rather than follow in his father’s footsteps. Accepted to the Royal Scottish Academy, he mastered his technique under the tutorial of G.P. Chalmers and W. McTaggart.

Originally, he began honing his craft as a portraitist before specializing in landscape painting. He is best known for his genre painting of interior scenes, created with his light and airy brushwork in an impressionist style. He exhibited his works, which were well received at the Royal Scottish Academy, as well as the Royal Academy, and won the acclaimed Maclaine Watters medal in 1878. Patrick Adam died in North Berwick in 1929. (From Global Art Gallery: www.globalgallery.com)

My response:

This portrait doesn’t seem typical of the paintings that I have found online by Patrick William Adam. The pictures that seem to have endured are the rather “mannered” and impersonal paintings of Edinburgh breakfast rooms with light flooding in to their people-free spaces. This one that Gerry has chosen has the subject essentially not interacting with Adam at all. The portrait is intimate mainly because the view it offers us of John Gray has some of his personal possessions around him and is relaxing by reading, again indicating that we are voyeurs here. The paintings in the background tell the story of Gray’s profession, but his face, tells us little.

I thought immediately of our local picture framer and artist, William Masson. William kindly agreed to sit for this portrait in which he has some personal posessions and the tools of his trade around him, telling his story for him. William is reading his book and, critically, not engaging with me. I tried to keep the picture totally impersonal, but looking at the scene through the viewfinder, I softened the scene a little by asking William to look up from his book to allow us to see a little more of his face, perhaps that’s a little of my portraitist’s desire to explore faces asserting itself. The picture was enjoyable to do, and I certainly feel I explored a different style of portrait.

“William Masson”

OK, so what’s all this about? Since my “100 Portraits” project I haven’t been stretching myself as much as I would like to, and while I am still regularly taking photographs I feel that I need something to make me learn some new approaches. I have always wanted to try to learn more about some interesting artists and try to take some inspiration or even provocation from their work into my photography.

I have asked a small group of friends to select a single painting by an artist that they don’t know anything about. The twist is that I want to work my way around the alphabet from A to Z! My friend Gerry, who discussed the idea with me originally, has given my my first challenge; the picture you see above. Not only will I learn about an artist, but hopefully the friend making the choice will also enjoy learning about the artist’s work.

Watch this space for B!