2012: A year in photos (part 2)

Moving on...

The List publish an Eating & Drinking Guide every year, and have a bit of a bash for some of the participants to celebrate each new edition.

Sync ran a Culture Hack in Glasgow which seemed worth a look.

Beltane came around again.

Ewan Morrison's Tales from the Mall launched to much praise.

Versecore was an interesting fusion of sounds and visuals, spearheaded by Zorras.

Back to school for a while. Most of the class went off on an all-expenses paid trip to Paris to shoot some Stock images. I didn't. So instead I advanced my ongoing Author Portraits series with a bunch of local writers who are underrepresented in photographs.

Nothing at the Scottish Book Trust is done by halves, not even a simple birthday party.

After the unusual engagement shoot I wasn't at the subsequent wedding but went along to the reception for a while.

More Illicit Ink, providing some Verbal Medicine.

Again with the college work distracting from the real world: the major project we had to do was running in the background. Most people were doing fashion, advertising, photojournalism... good portfolio fodder. I just HAD to be difficult of course and had embarked on a series of arty male nudes. It was a struggle because I wasn't quite sure what I was trying to do until I had done it but once the final set was printed on lovely paper I was most happy. And they're all worksafe and unless you knew the models intimately you wouldn't recognise them!

While scouting for possible nude models I popped along to Dr Sketchy's Anti Art School (currently on hiatus), which became a bit of a habit.

The Society of Young Publishers suffer from their name, as you need not be either a publisher or young to get involved; all that's required is that you have been in publishing for less than ten years. They run regular events on the theme of, you guessed it, publishing. This was an unusually interactive evening in the Brass Monkey.

More from Future Shorts...

Once again, school raised its head and asked for Fashion. Handily enough, my friendly designer Jacob Birge needed to shoot his final collection - in Inspace no less. Strange how college assignments are so much easier when they're real and useful.

Back to Dr Sketchy's!

"I know," said the Edinburgh International Festival, "let's do things outwith the actual Festival. Why not put some opera in a library?" And thus we had Love in a Library.

School's out for summer, school's out forever! Except first we had to plan and fund our own variant on a degree show, Exposed12. That was fun.

The Edinburgh International Book Festival launched their 2012 programme.

A recent plot to get regular people interested in science, Science on a Summer's Evening featured drinks, nibbles, music and talks - and it was a lovely summer's evening! There should be more of this sort of thing.

The 2012 Edinburgh International Film Festival, after the fiasco that was 2011, got back to doing what it was good at. Personally, I just hung out at Inspace most of the time. See?

And then it was time for some spy-themed Illicit Ink with Invisible Ink.

There was another wedding that I didn't attend but instead hung out at the reception...

Theater Paradok needed to raise some funds to produce their imminent Fringe show and how better to do so than to fill the still-fresh Looking Glass Books to bursting and put on some poetry?

Tupiniquin is a green-painted TARDIS at the top of Middle Meadow Walk. They make gluten free crepes with a Brazilian twang, and since it was their second birthday there was a crepe- and music-fuelled party on the street.

Graphic Scotland are still on the hunt for funding so don't manage to do as much publicly as they would like. Comic Creators was the second event of its kind, the previous one being in Edinburgh, where they invited artists and writers to come along and meet up. In a comic shop of course.

A new voice in the world of e-publishing, Thistle in the Kiss launched in the Wee Red Bar.

After months of planning, the now infamous paper Sculptures were about to go on a tour of Scotland. Suddenly the press cared a lot!

And then it was the Festivals... onto part 3!

2012: A year in photos (part 1)

It seems to be the done thing these days, blogging with barely-captioned images.

Moving forward, I think I may start doing a monthly summary of what I've been doing - as much to remind me as anything else. And as a practice run, what better than to pull together a monstrous summary of 2012?

[deep breath]

In a very literal sense my year started with fireworks, as I had been roped in to cover the street party. This meant I was on the 5th floor above La Senza for midnight, offering a terrifyingly unpararlleled view of the show.

On January 1st I went to St Giles Cathedral to see part of the New Year's Games; this was a labyrinth, complete with Minotaur, played to a strange live soundtrack.

Electric Tales at The Stand then provided the usual selection of experimental comedy storytelling. Which was followed by some dodgy non-comedy reviewer slating in in the paper and (much to my offense) remarking that the in house photographer seemed overly interested in the burlesque-style performer (as if). Nice to start the year with some controversy.

Found had a residency at Inspace to work on a new interactive project called #unravel. Featuring recordings of Aiden Moffat and a bunch of computer-controlled instruments, the installation lurked in the background on many events before it went off to woo the world.

Back in Inspace, Electric Bookshop brought us their quarterly presentations and discussions on the future of books and publishing.

My friend Caoimhe now lives in Japan so when she visited for a few weeks we simply had to do things with her.

Keith Ridgway is a writer who had spent the last few years living in Edinburgh and was about to return to Dublin. He needed some headshots so we went for a wander.

Cachín Cachán Cachunga! describes itself as "Queer & Trans* cabaret... with a focus on disabled & Deaf, migrant, & multiracial LGBTI communities". So it's pretty inclusive.

The Beltane Fire Society now have an office in the Art's Complex and since there's some large spaces in there they pulled together an exhibition of the society's history, with photos and costumes galore.

The Stitch Lounge popped up again, allowing more experienced stitchers to create interesting outfits while providing workshops for the n00bs.

And then it was time for some more Cachín Cachán Cachunga! but this time in Dumfries.

Marco Donnarumma makes strange noises with his body. Which is to say, he developed sensors that can be strapped on and provide a signal based on muscle movements, which are then translated into music. Having seen a certain amount of success with this previously with Xth Sense he moved it forward and made it more of a performance.

For the last five Februarys the UNESCO Edinburgh City of Literature trust have been running reading campaigns in the city to promote reading and literature. This year, in a break from this tradition, they lit up parts of Edinburgh to celebrate the enlightenment in a campaign cunningly entitled enLIGHTen.

Having been ousted from Cabaret Voltaire while they were rebuilt, Illicit Ink was welcomed into the Bongo Club for When Worlds Collide.

Electric Tales again! With less controversy and Susan Calman this time.

The Scottish Book Trust run the New Writers Award and every year hold an event to celebrate the new batch and showcase the previous winners' work.

Currently held in Inspace, Future Shorts pulls together exciting short films from around the globe, shown around the globe.

Ken MacLeod's new novel, Intrusion, was launched at Pulp Fiction with the support of the ESRC Genomics Forum.

There's a chap called Chris who runs occasional parties which he calls Salons; aimed at getting creative people to meet each other (and have a good time) they combine eating, drinking, chatting and performing. Oddly, the Salon in 2011 with Amanda Palmer was not the best of them...

Todd Zuniga's Literary Death Match tours the world pitting writers against a panel of judges in a wacky and not at all literary competition that is guaranteed to raise a smile.

A new Lit night, No Rhyme, No Reason launched in the Jazz Bar with a series of works in response to Jack Kerouac.

The Edinburgh International Science Festival is too hectic for them to afford good coverage of all their events, but they do splash out of a few. This year I ended up at lots of them, not even counting those at Inspace, but the firewalking was definintely the most entertaining.

Inspace's contributions to the Science Festival are called LateLab. They're fairly typical of the events held there, but crammed into a shorter period. And they were all excellent fun.

Electric Bookshop again, as part of LateLab...

Of course all of these things were happening around college work. One thing I tended to struggle with is 'Fashion' assignments, not least because I always ended up with things going wrong and being rushed. For this one, I worked with my friend Behm to create a faux-Wedding shoot featuring a bride and bridesmaids who were... not feminine. Some time with Gumtree found me some dresses, the girls at Materialise helped fit them to the models and a makeup artist recently arrived from London did exactly what was needed to their faces. Add a very handy lighting assistant and it was a roaring success!

The Scifest/Latelab series simply had to have a Stitch Lounge, but with a twist. Stitch Lab paired scientist with creatives to make a series of science-inspired outfits.

And then there was a very unusual engagement shoot...

Onto Part 2!

Paper sculptures - a new chapter

As the #giftED tour was kicking off, the Scottish Book Trust got in touch with the still-anonymous sculptor. Would she be willing to create some new sculptures for the inaugural Book Week Scotland? Joyously, the answer was yes!

This was kept extremely hush-hush, only an handful of people knew it was happening. Even most of the staff at SBT didn't find out until the week before they were publicly announced.

After discussing the brief with the artist it was decided that there would be no more sculptures for Edinburgh and that the five new ones would be spread around Scotland, each in a location that related to the book. As Book Week approached, teasers were sent out to the press and a select number of interested parties in Edinburgh were given a preview.

As Book Week started the first clue was issued. And it wasn't long before Emma Lister turned up at the Mitchell Library in the Glasgow School of Art. What did she find? Alastair Gray’s Lanark!

And for being the first person to find this epic sculpture she received a Lanark-themed cup.

Day two dawned and now that people knew what was at stake there was quite a buzz. A series of Burns-themed clues led Jemma Dornan to the Robert Burns Museum where she found Tam O’Shanter.

On day three it was children from Eriskay Primary School who came to the Am Politician pub on the Isle of Eriskay where they found Compton Mackenzie's Whisky Galore.

Day four was found by Stephen Ryan in J M Barrie's birthplace, a many-sided Peter Pan.

And finally, on the fifth day Morag Jones was led to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island at the Scottish Seabird Centre in North Berwick.

For the time being these will all be staying in these locations, but some are sure to move around. Who knows, perhaps there will be another tour with even more sculptures to show?

In the meantime, it’s not quite the same as seeing them in person but at least these photos can give you an idea of how detailed the wee beasts are.

UPDATE

A box was delivered to the Scottish Poetry Library during the exhibition with instructions that it not be opened until the end of the tour.

On December 7th, the penultimate day of the tour, a crowd gathered to watch the opening of the box.

And they were not disappointed!

Built from a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses, a girl sits under a tree wearing a crown and reading a book, while the open page shows Stevenson's poem, To My Mother.

In the tree are the words, "You in a garden green" and "With me were king and".

Then on the girl's crown is the word "Queen". On the trunk of the tree are the words, "Were hunter, soldier, tar"

and the inside of the small book reads, "And all the thousand things that children are".

Bunting in the tree reads "But time, which none can bind, While flowing fast away, leaves love behind." These are all lines from Stevenson's poem, To Willie And Henrietta.

The note accompanying the sculpture read: " .... For the Love of Books. Every ending marks a new beginning."

The story never ends!