Portrait Gallery

Today I met up with friends in Edinburgh and after a morning coffee we decided to head into town for a bit of culture. We first wanted to see the picture of 'The Goldfinch' by the dutch painter Fabritius who was a star pupil of Rembrandt but was sadly died at the age of 32 years when a gunpowder store blew up, killing him and destroying much of his work. It is currently on loan at the National Gallery in Edinburgh for a month from one of the dutch galleries. It is a remarkable painting - so life like as I should know as we often have goldfinches coming to our bird feeder and they have been the subject of many a blip by me. 

En route to this painting we passed through the Scottish Academy and of course wanted to look at what was currently on show. After a break for lunch we then visited the National Portrait Gallery to view the annual national portrait competition and an exhibition of modern scottish portraiture. By this stage we were feeling a bit exhausted and thought we had maybe overdone the cultural binge. On the way out I took a few iPhone shots of the central lobby of the National Portrait Gallery. The christmas tree in the middle helped to fill what can be a rather empty space. I have taken many pictures here previously and never found them satisfactory but I think the tree helped. The lighting in the lobby is very varied with huge areas of shadow but with a bit of selective work in Lightroom it is possible to produce a more balanced shot.