At the moment the posts aren’t exactly ten a penny. It has been all festival over here for the last two months (you may have noticed) and what a joy it has been to be able to lift up the carpet and show the insides and my own take on it. And the feedback….i won’t even begin. Just the experience of doing the EIF was life changing enough, i can barely take into account the great ripples in motion for my life in the aftermath. It makes me have to close my eyes.
I have not really stepped aside and laid down my thoughts since the festival ended. What actually happened was a a very abrupt stop. One minute i was taking pictures hell for leather, the next i was not. All was still in the air but my ears were ringing. And on cue the wind whips up and winter settles in again and Edinburgh tries to remember what it did before the commotion and puts the good times to the back of its mind. That brief, eerie silence before the pace is picked back up. What to do when you cannot keep pace with the machine. I’m still dwelling on the good times. Four years of them.
You can’t talk about memory without talking about time, and sitting on the edge on my bed i feel let down by both. To try and crystallise the last four years of us together in my head: an impossibility. You only draw attention to the great void of forgetting. And it is only when something has changed for good that you fear the obscuring of all the luscious moments that became it in memory. You would desperately discard all the facts and insight and sophistication, all those numbers and dates in perpetual oblivion, to feel the old weight and hear the familiar notes. All that bloated rumination for a seconds glimpse of a humdrum scene. To surrender all the world’s knowledge for just the vapour of a scent. Of her.
Our selective memory is not without mercy, even if it is without control. Tiny fragments connect. In the smell of rain, or burning toast, or a warm quilt, or seeing old handwriting, or the sun on your neck: orbs of the past that unlock the treasure chest. Like a snippet of conversation, a glimpse into the past. Without warning, you are elsewhere in a younger body. Back at the start, back to the anchor. Hand in hand in the sunshine, carelessness on the air, with nowhere to go.
Four years under the microscope. I can only shake my head at the scale of it. Like yesterday and forever at the same time. These are the things in the foreground when change is on the air. Beyond the lists and inventories. When your boxes are packed and groaning, you sweep your old floorboards and switch off the lights for the last time, before heading out into the dark. You panic about the nuts and bolts falling off on the move, the great material convoy to a new pasture. A situation as old as the world. The ensuing grapple with memory as it gradually withdraws the old scenes that buoy me on. Only to realise that it is doing a packing of its own. Saving the most precious and private things, encrypting them beyond retrieval, for when they are needed.
For now. For our old flat together. Where my ears are still ringing.
Huge apologies all. I haven’t forgotten about our corner of the web over here, it is long in need of a dusting though.
Like all troughs, there is a huge crest of activity coming this way. Stay tuned for info and some footage on the Edinburgh International Festival Photography exhibition, and the launch date this month. Not just that, there is a fully fledged, upholstered website on the way to soothe your eyes (and ruin my brain). An unearthing of neverbeforeseen personal as well as commercial work. It has been an exciting month and there are some very cool projects emerging but there is also a proportion of personal woe that, no doubt, shall all be shared in due course.
Anyone living down in Leith, all i will say is look out. Its time to batten down the hatches.
Make light work, as the proverb says. Still the work required of this festival is only for the hardy. And hard work is not taken lightly.
It has been hypnotically fascinating to watch the machine of the Edinburgh International Festival come to full fruition. While I am only around as the photographer for the peak of action, it is easy to spot a year of hard work embedded in the frantic activity that is August. Artists and ambassadors from polar corners of the globe, full crews and sets and companies appearing in Edinburgh overnight by what seems like calm coincidence. As diverse a production as any one that appears on its stages. Diverse to its very core, it is easy to overlook the local hands that keep the show afloat.
Thanks for a brilliant festival.
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| Staff at the Usher Hall wait at the stage door as a performance closes |
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| An instructor from the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble keeps time during a dance class |
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| Wardrobe staff prepare the dancers point shoes behind the scenes at the National Ballet of Scotland |
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| A dancer practices classical Indian dance positions at the Nritrygram dance class |
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| Legendary artist Wu Hsing-kuo performs on stage as King Lear |
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| BBC crew prepare the lighting for the Review Show with the Legendary Music of Rajestan |
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| Wu Hsing-kuo and the First Minister of Taiwan |
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| A Rajistani musician tunes up before a recital |
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| Pyrovision fireworks crew prepare a week early in all conditions for the ultimate Sunday night display |
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| A festival patron on a touch tour of 1001 Nights where visually or hearing impared are guided through a performence using touch and description |
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| Melvyn Tan customises his piano to play a percussion duet for his performance |
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| A performer of Ea Sola prepares the mat floor backstage before a show |
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| Pianist Yefim Bronfman |
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| Shen Wei dancers warm up with slow breathing exercises before a morning dance class |
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| A weaver at the Dovecot Heirlooms exhibition spins fine silk on a traditional loom |
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| Sally Hobson, head of programme development with the festival |
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| Jonathon Mills, director of the Edinburgh International Festival |
A few more visual updates from on and off the stage at the Edinburgh International Festival.
The Festival has just turned 64 years young! 64 is a huge achievement for the longest running performance festival in Edinburgh. While maybe starting to feel a little senior, compared to the scenes of art, performance and theatre where it draws its programme from, it is actually very young.
While the festival pulls huge tradition and ritual from across the globe, it uses every modern convenience to drive itself. Everywhere i look i see the very old with the very new. Old performers and new audiences. Ancient venues with fresh approaches. Old circles welcoming new friends. Traditional stories told like for the first time.
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A mother and her daughter admire the Lightning Drawings exhibition at the launch night
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The rooftop grid system at the Festival Kings Theatre. These bars have taken the weight of thousands of performances since 1906.
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Amjad Ali Khan during a sound rehearsal
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| Princess Bari Choreographer Eun-Me Ahn and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh embrace in thanks at the artists reception at the City Chambers |
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| Conductor Alberto Zedda leads a rehearsal of the orchestra for Semiramide |
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| Ravi Shankar receives a standing ovation at the age of 91 at the Usher Hall |
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| The original curtain counter-weight at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre |
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| Sir Gerald Elliot hosts an Indian inspired pre-theatre reception in honour of Ravi Shankar |
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| 2nd year students from the Royal High School stretch out before an after school dance class. THe RHS is a main focus of dance tuition with many students going on to dance professionally |
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A guest weaver operates a handmade loom at the Dovecot studios. His technique is meticulous and ancient in spinning silk.
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| Young participants in the Nrityagram Ensemble dance class look on with a snack |
It has arrived! Today is the first day of the Edinburgh International Festival and it is time to get to work.
I want to get a series of posts rolling over the next month that show the tiny mechanics of this great Festival. It is a performance of sorts itself, simply on sheer scale, and i am looking forward to documenting my way through all the smoke and mirrors. Without diluting anything with words, stay tuned and Behold!
I like it in Scotland when you can talk about a season with no reference to the weather. Summer is a strict MayJuneJuly affair, rain or shine (or rain). So now that it is just at its end for the 2011th time this epoch, it should be celebrated. Not to say that the sun and games are at an end, contrary, August in Edinburgh means just that, but its nice to take a little time aside and revel in the sun we did have and all the deviancy it brings. This is no time for writing, there is weather to be had…
How can I not thank Ollie, Elaine and the wonderful S for all the sun times? I cannot!
Since there is still so much footage i am sifting through from my visit to Paris this spring, i am never going to get it all out at one time. So i wanted to share some pictures that sit very high on the nostalgiometer and score an epic 10 on the fondoscope, as it were.
As i write this i am currently in the throes of needing a hobby. I’ve been talking about it for some time but, tragically, there are some unfortunate self-imposed criteria that give me ample opportunity to procrastinate. What i need, what i really need, is something wildly exciting, yet on my doorstep. Something complex and technically brand new, yet requires minimum expensive specialist equipment. Something that i can take anywhere with me, yet does not necessarily require a car (but maybe a licence -whoa!). Something that pricks up ears at the dinner party, yet is not pursued by the man on the street. You know, a hobby? I think if i fed these ludicrous demands into some hobby screening database the result would deservedly be Extreme Ironing or some Cross Country Ostrich Farming. I think i need to lower my expectations but, at any rate, i could probably use the ironing practice.
The point is that in my search i have settled for an unsurprising compromise. I run.
I cannot really remember how i started running. One night, when i was much younger and able a night owl than i am now, i put on a pair of shorts and took off in a single direction without any idea where i was going, what my motive was, or what people would make of such a sleeveless wreck wheezing through their housing estate under the cover of darkness. I made this a habit and while i got a lot fitter i didn’t get better, necessarily, at running. I try to run all the time now and how wonderful it is to get into the rhythm of things. I have clothes and shoes, bottles and playlists, and it is all just distracting enough that i only rarely remember what i thought on the first chilly evening i went out: this is so dull.
Despite my wholehearted agreement with others who say running clears their heads, breaks up their day, relaxes them, gets their thoughts in focus, i must admit, so does a bath. And at least in the privacy of your bathroom you are safe from an inventory of headcolds and arthritic knees if not, least of all, kept from committing sartorial sacrilege. See him now before you… forties, bright pink futuristicfabric vest stuffed over a hoody. Mismatching matching neon lime shorts that stop mysteriously skin-tight below the knee. The brightest trainers at one end, bobbing luminous road-safety beanie at the other. A beacon of aesthetic profanity. And in-between? Facial expressions that shift between narcolepsy, disbelief, and the most piercing grief. With mouth swinging wildly agape punctuated by manic inhalations through gritted teeth. All this offset the whole time by limp, dangley arms that throttle back and forth like a tranquillized T-rex. Well imagine this poor man out in the street busy violating the eyes of all and think: Wouldn’t you rather him enjoying the comfort of a bath?
How i feel about these poor people is that, like me, they need a hobby. I don’t plan on getting lost in self doubt here, because 1) i have thankfully never seen myself run and 2) i ran in Paris.
The breathy beauty of the banks of Seine and the wonderful poetry of early morning Paris will have to wait for another post though, spectacular as is. I went for a run with my pal and roommate Karen one afternoon. Neither of us were game really, it was that or a hangover if i remember correctly. I even brought along a roll of film to document the grimness. But, as we searched for some secluded paradise garden, the low clouds gave way to their carriage, and lo : downpour and delight. What we actually had was very real fun with an enormous sense of achievement. We got ourselves hugely lost, with everything brand new, our eyes wide open.
So the next time you run ask yourself “what do you want to see and where will you take yourself?” If you just want a quick sweat with your eyes glued to the ground, why not just walk…or have a bath? Get out and lose yourself.
On the s i t t e r s calendar this week is the SCE final year exhibition in the Out of the Blue Drill Hall on Dalmeny St starting on Tuesday night. If you haven’t gotten wind of the glorious spectacle to be, you need to get yourself down to Leith walk for a visual feast! It is only the cream of Scottish Student photography and the gourmet capital of aesthetic cuisine for the next week in Edinburgh. The team has designed and built a website as well as a blog that you can go right ahead and get a preview of whats on show. If none of that is enough, I have been in the workshop, and Arthur the toilet..has been PIMPED (and cleaned)! He’ll be on public display for as long as i can get him so come one, come all and take a seat!
Two images from s i t t e r s will be exhibited along with the recently printed, and delightfully exciting, hardback coffee table book. It is a luscious square format banquet of high quality prints of the project. It will be on hand for some light toilet reading material. Enough said!
