It was a busy rainy day at the Edinburgh festival. Sure it was busy on the streets, but I'm talking more about cramming in as much in the day as possible. I traveled there on the train with my two photographer friends, John McPake and John Summers. The idea was that we would go to Edinburgh for the day, shoot some pictures and visit the World Press Photo Exhibition at the Scottish Parliament building. But by the time the day came around, I had been booked to shoot a musical comedy act at the Playhouse (thanks to my Kage Collective accomplice Robert Catto) and had a meeting at a venue about an exhibition that I will be involved in this coming November.
I really don't mind rain when shooting on the streets. Everyone is so distracted by the weather and seem to have tunnel vision, that it's so easy to get in close. If you're holding an umbrella with your left hand, nobody notices the camera in your right hand. I'm really enjoying using Fuji's Classic Chrome film simulation and find that the out of camera JPEG's need little to no work in post. A bit of Contrast and Clarity in Lightroom and maybe a vignette and they're done. But they're definitely very usable straight out of camera. I shot a lot of Kodachrome on my OM-2n back in the 80's and to be able to get that look straight out of camera using Classic Chrome is really great.
Edinburgh is a fantastic place to be when the festival is in full swing. It doesn't matter if you're a tourist or a local, the Fringe is constantly bubbling over and constantly changing. It's a street photographer's dream and I always look forward to multiple visits each year. It's also a good place to try street photography for the first time if you've always wanted to try it, but were a bit uncomfortable about pointing your camera at a stranger.
World Press Photo 15 in the Scottish Parliament Building (above and 3rd from the left) was well worth a visit and had a good variety of pictures. WPP has had a lot of controversy over the past year or two, but there is some fantastic work this year and it's a shame the event has been tarnished a bit. I bought the book on Amazon the next day and have to say that although some of the pictures work better on a wall, a lot of them look even better in the book, as the prints in the exhibition seemed to be a little up and down on the quality department.
I've been back to the Edinburgh Festival since to test the latest 90mm f2 lens that Fujifilm UK kindly sent me for a test drive. I'll have a full review here soon, but lets just say that the shallow depth of field blur is probably the best and smoothest I've seen on any lens, from any manufacturer.