Tour 1 - Castlehill to John Knox House
This tour begins at the entrance to Edinburgh Castle Esplanade beside the Witches Well, hearing about its history. Then, move on to photograph the following locations:
• Cannonball House - with a prize for spotting the Cannonball first!
• Get shown where to stand for a bird's-eye-view down the entire Royal Mile for your photo album.
• Riddle's Court: hear about its history. Get tips on how to shoot when close-up to your subject.
• Lady Stair's Close: see where Robert Burns stayed, and get a great photo of the Writers' Museum with its background over the river to the hills of Fife.
• Take a short walk from the courtyard down steps to visit Mary of Guise’s palace, at New College. Stop here for some architectural photos of the building and its arches. Get tips on shooting for a wide dynamic range, which is seen often with the arches of the closes being in relative darkness.
• Head back to the High Street, and walk down to see where the Luckenbooths were located, as well as the Edinburgh Tolbooth, with the opportunity to photograph the exterior of St Giles. Get tips for using a slow shutter speed to show people in movement.
End your tour at the John Knox House, where there is an opportunity to stay to chat to your guide in the Haggis Box Café on any points you’d like to know more about to enhance your visit to this beautiful city.
Tour 2: John Knox House to Holyrood
This tour begins outside the John Knox House, at the Netherbow Wellhead. We will gradually walk downhill, through the Canongate area to visit key sites of the medieval years and get some tips on how to shoot for various conditions.
We will visit the following locations:
• The site of the Netherbow Port Gate and “World's End”, hearing about the three city walls and their gates into the city
• Morocco Land, with its hidden statue of the Moor and the fascinating back-story surrounding this little statue
• The Tolbooth Canongate, with architectural photography tips when shooting this building
• Canongate Kirk – tips will be given around how to shoot from a distance in a busy tourist area, and tips on a multi-shot approach to removing traffic and people from shots
• The Canongate Mercat Cross – tips given on using wide and narrow apertures to capture differing depths of field, as well as the history behind the city mercat crosses
• White Horse Close, with a photography stop to shoot its renovated medieval-style buildings. We will hear all about its history as a staging post and royal stables
• We then head to Holyrood to photograph the Queen’s Bath House, and hear about its interesting historical finds
• Then we head back up the Royal Mile to shoot in Bakehouse Close, one of the locations where the Print Shop in Outlander was filmed
This is the end of Tour 2, after which you are welcome to join me for a coffee if you would like to chat further about any aspects visited, or get more tips on photography or useful points for your visit to Edinburgh.
