An Emotional Day

The Emotional Equation

Today, finally, was our big crit day at college for our conceptual projects. I was given the word Emotion and had to come up with a minimum of 12 images that evoked some kind of emotion!

I used my good friends action man and Barbie (well a cheap version of Barbie) to help with some modeling. I had great fun doing this project. In the end I named it The emotional Equation.

Now we have to do some reportage!! Will need to use real people for that one.

All photos by Caroline harvey

Thought for the day

I saw this on my wanderings through the wonderful world wide web and liked it. Not sure who wrote it. Enjoy. 

I am everything and I am nothing.

An atheist today, Agnostic tomorrow.

Humanist.

Buddhist.

Skeptic.

Universalist.

Free thinker.

Existentialist.

I am all these titles.

I am none of these titles.

I live without boundaries.

I live without titles.

I live without fear.

Love.

Love is all you need.

Fine Morning

The Scottish Parliament looking less gray than usual.

I was across the other side of town early this morning as my car had to go to the garage, so decided to walk home since it was such a fine day.

My journey took me through Holyrood Park and past the Scottish Parliament. I am not really a huge fan of the architecture of this building. Why? I don't think it really suits our climate. It was designed by a Spanish architect, who I presume saw buildings generally surrounded by blue skies and beautiful Spanish sunshine. He was obviously not accustomed to the gray skies, fog, mist and rain of Scottish skies. On a normal day this building just blends in with the background and to be honest looks fairly miserable. Today, however, I have to say it was looking quite pretty against the blue winter sky with the sun glinting off the metal facades.

The canal was mostly frozen, but had obviously been quite soft at some point over the last few days. These swan footprints frozen along the surface must have stretched out for about half a mile. The swan must have decided it was not worth trying to take off or did not fancy his chances on the landing.

It never ceases to amaze me the stuff that gets thrown on to the canal when frozen. There seemed to be endless bricks, branches, pipes, cans, bottles all frozen into the surface. The large upright pole amused me!

All photos by Caroline Harvey.

A Pretty Commute

Cycle path white out.

 I use my bike to commute to college, even in the worst weather, as it is quicker than the car and I can't afford the petrol these days. This morning the roads had been well gritted so were the usual combination of brown water and slush, but the cycle path, well it was gorgeous! I am glad I had put my wee snap happy compact in my pocket before I left. 

I was surprised at how well my thin slick tyres performed in the snow, however if it all freezes tonight I suspect my trip tomorrow won't be as much fun.

All photos by Caroline Harvey

Behind the Fence

Allotments at Chesser

I woke up to big fluffy flakes of snow falling and lying on the ground and was excited at the chance of going out to play and photograph the snowy scenes. Sadly by the time I had eaten breakfast and dressed, not only had it stopped snowing but what had fallen had melted and disappeared. I needed a walk no matter what the weather so headed out into the now cold but dry morning. I took the long route across town that follows the Water of Leith, but this time towards Leith.

I enjoy this route as it not only gets you away from the traffic, but gives you a different perspective of the city. It is similar to going places by train and you see the back of industrial estates etc as you enter city boundaries. I love this behind the scene and often unglamorous view of places. With this in mind I decided to take some photographs of views that are kept behind fences.

The first photo is of the allotments at Chesser. Although not much was growing at this time of year, the jumble of the make shift sheds and fences is always interesting to look at. Allotment owners are the world's best recyclers when it comes to shed building.

Saughton bowling greens.

Murrayfield was surrounded by more fences than usual due to building works and setting up for the first 6 Nations match against Wales.

Reflection on the water.

Eventually after 3 hours I reach my final destination and place of worship. Alien Rock. Due to the bad weather I have not been climbing outside since the new year, so in order to stay strong for my upcoming trip I have been visiting the church of the plastic holds. A good 2 hour session of lead climbing helped build a healthy appetite for the extremely tasty Nepalese curry that was to be had later that evening.

Climbing a good religion to have!

All photos by Caroline Harvey

My Town

Princes Street and cones

Sometimes I love it. Sometimes I hate it. Sometimes it feels so big I am like a lost child. Sometimes it feels so small it smothers you to the point of suffocation, but however it makes me feel it is My Town. Edinburgh. Scotland's capital and quite possibly the city with the most roadworks and traffic cones in the world, and that is just on Prince's Street.

Well today was a beautiful day with no wind and blue skies, so I decided to go for a walk with my camera (now to be known as Clive for no good reason other than just because...) It was an unusual winter day as you could walk without burying your face under a hood or into the neck of your jacket. I saw lots of things I don't normally see!

Now for those of you that know the city, you will be fully aware of how it is forever changing. It has an Old Town and a New Town, but today since I was looking skyward, I noticed a very new town. Lots of new architecture all across the city, much of which is being integrated with some old listed buildings.

 I loved the shadows that were being cast today, old and new merged perfectly at the site of the old Royal Infirmary on Middle Meadow Walk.

Mixing old and new at Quartermile, formerly 

Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.

Check the blue sky, nice.

At Fountainbridge the buildings continue to rise from the rubble. There are still a few remnants of the old Scottish and Newcastle Brewery, but it is fast turning into a vision of glass and metal. It will soon be the next hip and happening area of town that the shiny happy people will want to move to in order to be accepted at the office party.

To me this area of town will always be remembered for the brewery, the Tartan Club, the McEwans clock, and the point that you used to be able to get a taxi when staggering home late at night.

I think I will do more tours soon and show you more of My Town.

All photos by Caroline Harvey

Cloudy,Cold Sunday

A cloudy, cold Sunday, what to do?

After an extremely lazy morning, I finally put on some clothes and headed out in to the gray day armed with my camera and took a wee wander along the Water of Leith path. Still trying to get to grips with my new toy, played about with aperture and length of exposure today. Got a long way to go I think, so more practice required.

Winter berries

A little over exposed, but like the moving water.

All photos by Caroline Harvey