2012: A year in photos (part 3)

It's August!

~in the fields was the art installation at Inspace during the Edinburgh Art Festival. Highlight had to be the cylinders of water, in which were stones from beaches around Scotland held aloft by litter found on the same beaches.

Which was far spookier at night!

The List Party is one of the biggest of the Festival season; just about everyone of note in the Arts is there. Last year I had a bit of a struggle to get a ticket because I had forgotten about it. This year they got me in to cover it, which was much more sensible.

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society do a lot more than just run the Fringe, but few people realise how much they do. So to help demonstrate to participants, funders and the general public, I spent some time running around documenting their activities.

Thus, I ended up on the roof of St Giles Cathedral...

... at their epic Meet the media event...

... a schmoozy private event at Hamilton & Inches...

... various Press Launches...

... rehearsals...

... and some unusual show prep.

There was the opening of Gavin Evans' new exhibition, Naked Touch, at his cafe/gallery The Institute - which included the unnerving experience of seeing people standing near photographs of themselves naked.

There was some more Electric Bookshop.

An Evening with Neil & Amanda, another excuse for the army of terrifyingly dedicated Neil Gaiman/Amanda Palmer fans (the crossover is nearly complete now) to meet up.

Billy Letford, poetry's rising star of 2012, finally had his poetry collection launched at the Scottish Poetry Library. Other Photographers came, and they were shooting during the actual poetry - which is rare - which led to them being shushed and me being congratulated afterwards on being so quiet and unobtrusive!

Anna Burkey spent years as part of the @edincityoflit team before running off to South Africa for a few months. She came back to us but then had a proper leaving do before moving to Australia for a couple of years. Which meant that a lot of Edinburgh's Lit Scene came to Hemma to wave off the literary ninja.

And then of course, there was the Book Festival!

We spent time with the Yurt Doodler...

... on the carpet with Simon Callow...

... and Michael Palin.

I revelled in watching people poring over 'my' book.

The return of Chris Close to the yurt area, producing his usual selection of unique portraits (here with Viv French).

The @edincityoflit Story Shop series in the Spiegeltent once more.

Strange indeed to see the press photographers going mad over an old physicist, but when Peter Higgs and Frank Close came to the carpet they might as well have been J K Rowling.

After a couple of weeks August finally gave in and went back to raining, but it was reassuring to think that in contrast to 2011 it was a slight surprise rather than numbing soggy inevitability. And it meant we could let the ducks out.

Niles Rogers came to do an event but before that he did an Unbound. Which was as busy as busy could be, with a queue stretching around the site hours before he started.

Seamus Heaney and Karl Miller came together to chat with Andrew O'Hagan, another big thing for the press.

The notoriously anonymous paper sculptor snuck in one day and left little 50 paper flowers around the site.

Eventually it all came to an end, with the Schools Gala Day in the sun with a host of Where's Wallies!

And then the Festivals Season finished with the Edinburgh International Festival's Fireworks.

On to Part 4 ...