Alexa, play “Wonderwall” by Oasis.
Everyone expected the weather in Edinburgh to be the exact same as London, chilly and rainy. We were blessed with the exact opposite for the second day in a row.
We woke up to sunny skies and warm air on the day of our last media visits to the Fringe Festival Society and David N. Anderson, a commercial photographer, with Chris Davey of Whitespace.
The Fringe Society visit was first, and it centered around the marketing of the festival, but more importantly, the values and concept of the festival. Olly Davies took an hour out of his busy schedule to discuss the matter with us.
Olly said people come to Fringe to see something they could never see at another time, and the mantra is “the feeling of belonging in a crowd full of strangers.” This ties back to the concept of inclusivity in its entirety.
Fringe is dedicated to including as many individuals as it can to enjoy the variety of arts that perform on the Fringe stages. Whether it be a physical disability or mental handicap, Fringe’s end goal is to accommodate anyone and everyone, and support all walks of life who simply want to enjoy the arts.
It’s quite an interesting concept to promote an idea rather a tangible event, and the values Fringe holds close to its core are admirable. Equally as admirable is the hard work and time David N. Anderson and Chris Davey put into a content shoot for Shackleton whiskey, which was discussed at our second visit of the day.
And I’ll get to that in a second – but first, bubbles.
Edinburgh keeps getting cooler and cooler. A few of us decided to go souvenir shopping between media sessions, so we went back to The Royal Mile to check out some shops. I bought a few mini bottles of whiskey and gin to bring home to my family, and of course keep one for myself, and I got a stuffed sheep and named him Craigory (Julia’s is Gregory, in case you were wondering.)
After a little shopping, we stumbled upon a man with the most unusual bubble wand, and the street was filled with bubbles. Children and adults alike were chasing and popping the bubbles, and Craig was off to the side chopping bubbles fruit ninja style.
We found a small bistro to have lunch before we had to run back to the hotel to meet for the second visit. I ate a delicious mozzarella, tomato and basil panini with a side salad. So back to media stuff –
Every day on the shoot for David and Chris was a 14-hour day, and I couldn’t imagine working 14 hours in extreme conditions day after day. When people think of photography, including myself at times, it’s more often than not a glamorous image of taking pretty pictures of people and landscapes – but this shoot involved freezing temperatures in Norway all to find captivating images of these bottles of whiskey.
Besides the passion and dedication these two have for what they do, David made it a point to mention that making your client comfortable when shooting is as important as the finished product. Making small talk and finding similarities between you and your subject is important to breaking the barrier they have up and creating a genuine, raw photo.
Speaking of small talk and similarities, that’s exactly what brought together our quirky group of strangers nearly two weeks ago, and here we are about to go out for our last hurrah.
It’s David’s birthday, so a group of us joined him at an indoor/outdoor pub similar to the Underbelly Festival in London that joined us together in the first place. It was a strange scene: the birthday boy ordered jambalaya of all things from a Scottish pub, people were walking around white coats that resembled doctor’s coats, but they were covered in bizarre drawings, and a boy from Wales sat at our table with us for a short time when I asked what was in his drink bucket – and he proceeded to point out that Julia and I “inhaled” our pizza.
As for the origin of the name of this blog, I have a lovely video of my mates singing along to “Wonderwall.” If you want to see the glory in its entirety, check out my Facebook @DaraCollins.
After the pub, David ended his birthday celebrations early while the rest of us deemed the night young, and we explored the night life of Edinburgh which proved to be quite interesting – or maybe we were the interesting crowd as Julia and Diego screamed “Bodies” on the sidewalk. If only we could see us through the locals’ eyes.