Greyfriars Kirk

What a glorious day it was in Edinburgh today. Pristine snow covered the ground, the sun was shining, the sky was pretty-a perfect day for photography.-and I finished work at lunch time so I was able to take advantage of the day. Here are some of the photos I took today:

This is the Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh Old Town. It is the churchyard associated with Greyfriars Bobby.


It is a very old burial ground as you can see. The graves back on to a row of terraces houses/shops called Candlemakers Row.


Here are some flowers at the grave of James Brown, Sexton , who befriended Bobby after the death of his master.
You can read the story here.

And a shot across the graveyard to Herriots School:

Merchiston School

snow pretty...

We had a lovely snow fall today.
This house is around the corner from me-I love all the textures in this shot:



This shot is in the church yard at the end of my street:


And finally-a black and white shot from my neighbourhood.

Snow day

We had the first snow of the season today. Only a light snowfall but it was so pretty!

A view up my street:

And in my garden:

Playing with Light

I have been doing Cheryl Johnson's 12 Days of Christmas photography class this week. It was 12 days of tips for taking better photos of the festivities. One tip was to make a cheap star filter by using a piece of mesh from a tea strainer and holding it in front the camera lens. I actually used my big colander/strainer-but it did the trick, as you can see here:


And here are a couple of the lights on the mantel piece(without the strainer).

Oh Christmas Tree..

We put our tree up on Sunday.

Some close ups:



I like this photo best!

More lamposts

Today there was a heavy fog all over Edinburgh-as there was yesterday, and is forecast again for tomorrow. I thought I might get some atmospheric shots, but I don't think there was enough tonal variation, and the light was very flat. I converted most of today's photos to black and white-well those I didn't delete!
Anyway, here are some lamps at Duddingston.

I quite like this silhouette:


This one lacks sharpness:

And this is my favourite-and it's not a black and white conversion. I like that it looks black and white until you focus on the leaves! I'm not sure whether a different crop might be better though.