Fringe Benefits

Took a walk up The Royal Mile to see what was on offer, pretty much the same but different as every other year. I did like these costumes though, only a shame they had the Sun directly behind them.

I walked up the mile form The Scottish Parliament where I had a meetup.com with the Creative Photography Group (formerly the Edinburgh Creative Photography Group but we won't go into that whole People's Liberation Front of Judea stuff) to view the World Press Photo Exhibition 2013 and discuss over a pint afterwards. The exhibition is, of course, very good. Never having been before it makes a change to see a photo exhibition of press photography rather than an artist's work. Seeing pictures of things that are most definitely real, and ranging from Olympic athlete's to dead bodies at crime scenes, creates a much better understanding of the way in which photography can be very much of and in the moment of reality rather than the expression of an artistic intent, which is more the kind of thing I normally go to see. There was even a bit of controversy over the winning image. Apparently it was considered too 'processed' by some to be classed as press photography, this due to the merging of two images derived from the same RAW file. Given the amount of 'processing' stages it takes just to get data from a CCD to an image on a computer screen this seems a bit of a harsh judgement. My personal favourite, which I can't begin to describe...

Our choice of time to attend meant that we got to see the Scottish Defence League march descend upon Parliament, with its attendant English counterpart. Go figure...

So after all that up and about activity business I'm now suffering with mild pain in my hip and ankles, trying to avoid the 'come to bed' eyes the rum is giving me, but I doubt I'll be able to resist long...