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 ...

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!