It started with a shot I wanted to do in the evening of the Inch Cape wind farm components - the big yellow jackets resting temporarily down in Leith.

I loved getting St Mary’s Cathedral in front of them as they are a very similar height of 90m but of course the cathedral is built on ground 58m higher and is 3/5th of the distance away, so looks a bit taller. The vertical distillery at Leith Docks peeks over on the right as well (reminder to self to go for a peek out their windows).

As I was up on the edge of the Pentlands I took the chance to get the sun going down behind the wind farm out west of there.

The clouds got in the way but I’ll keep in on my list of want-to-gets. For the spinning wind turbine blades to be sharp at 600mm I had to shoot a reasonable ISO of 2000 at f/11 to get 1/1600 second exposures.

Coming back into the city I couldn’t resist stopping to catch it just above West Cairn hill. The summit cairn there was a Bronze Age burial site around 3500 years ago and I wonder what the locals would say if we time travelled back and showed them our mobile with this image of the moon above their sacred site?

Probably “Have you not got the latest iphone mate, it takes much better foties than that”. Bronze Agers - no respect for their youngers.

West Cairn and East Cairn are collectively known as the Twin Cairns, standing to the south of Harperrig Reservoir, and they reckon these 45m wide cairns were taller than today and would have been very distinct in the landscape.

This shot of the Hub spire shows East Cairn with its ancient pile of rocks easily visible from what would have been hill forts on Castle Rock, Calton Hill, Arthur’s Seat, Blackford, the Craiglockharts and every one of Edinburgh’s hills and high points.

On the road home I had to detour to see what that moon looked like over the more local Pentlands. I wasn’t disappointed by the view of the dusk sky through a favourite wee wood. Some of the trees here have wonderful twisted branches with a great view behind and I always feel very at home, grounded and connected when I’ve spent 10 minutes wandering here. It has a special vibe somehow, even in the dark.

I planned for one kind of shot, and one shot just led to another. I love when a plan goes awry.

Maybe see you out there.
Tom

No.19 - the view from North Berwick Law at sunrise - I’ve always loved these trees which stand about 1/3 of the way up on the east side, and are great in profile when seen from the north and east.

No.18 - Aberdour Castle orchard

No.17 - St Cuthbert’s kirk in a wee blizzard

No.16 - the River Tay in autumn

No.15 - Andrew the piper at sunset - the best piper in Edinburgh currently on duty at the Tattoo but for other work you can find him over here
https://www.instagram.com/huffinpuffinpiper/

No.14 - sunrise gloam over the Forth Bridges

No.13 - bell tower sunset

No.12 - Christmas Eve in North Queensferry

No.11 - moonlit shopping on the Royal Mile

No.10 - Kelpie with dark brooding sky

No.9 - haar creeping in from the Forth up Leith Walk

No.8 - sunrise bench up Braid Hills

No.7 - crescent moon behind the Edinburgh Castle

No.6 - midnight moonlit wander in the Pentlands

No.5 - crazy pink sunset with a New Town horizon

No.4 - spiretastic scene taking in Holy Corner, St Mary’s and over to Fife

No.3 - stubby but intense rainbow over Salisbury Crags

No.2 - Blackness Castle at sunrise

No.1 - classic BMW in Chamber St when the haar came in

That’s all folks.
Maybe see you out there.
Tom

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This was always going to be a tricky one this solar eclipse, happening smack in the middle of the festivals, but also because of its height, temptingly low at 14 degrees, but not quite low enough to frame easily with a city object or building.

The last time we had one of similar magnitude in 2015 I’d persuaded my pal “Wee Jamie” to jump around on top of Salisbury Crags as seen above. Turns out not much changed for this one.

I’d done my research. Overdone my planning if I’m honest, with lots of options for different collaborations and people, and certain buildings, but the last few days I did a visit every evening at the 7.05 max eclipse time just to see exactly how it all lined up for the 2 or 3 minutes of golden opportunity.

Calton Hill was going to be absolutely hoachin so I ultimately opted for people instead of objects and off we trekked up Salisbury Crags - again.

The sun did disappear behind a massive cloud and many people got distracted enough to miss the sun doing peekaboo through the clouds every now and then. The one above was pretty close to the maximum of 91%. Notice the dude with the box, which is a homemade device to view the sun without looking at it. See on the left our wee band of three getting Wee Jamie (the latest model) ready for his moment of Batman fame. Brodie is on the phone to us at the bottom while Nomi helps Jamie with his outfit.

As we get Jamie lined up the sun makes another peekaboo and the folk down the hill realise they are in the presence of a superhero. I think I need to do a few repairs on that outfit, it’s gettin’ a bit raggedy.

Another near-miss here, but the conditions are about as hard as you can get. As well as the cumulus clouds getting in the way in the lower half of the sky, there was a whole blanket of cirrus clouds which you could see through, BUT they also lit up easily with the sun’s light and so distorted the shape of the sun and moon by being highlighted themselves.

Eventually, but too late for the maximum eclipse, we managed to sneak some shots of Batman.

We salvaged something from a difficult scenario, and learned that when it comes to eclipses we need a Jamie and we need Salisbury Crags. I’ll keep that in mind for 2050.

Maybe see you out there.
Cheers
TD

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