The Little Edinburgh Project 18 - The Christmas Carousel

The Little Edinburgh Project

This is Little Edinburgh, it is a series of shots I have taken around the city of Edinburgh in Scotland over the years. It is called Little Edinburgh because the focus of the project is to take photos in a way as to show the city in miniature using the tilt-shift effect. Edinburgh is an international cosmopolitan city but still somehow has a small town feel to it. I cannot walk down the street without recognising someone I know. So with that in mind it felt appropriate to create a vision of Edinburgh that makes it look very small, almost like a toy town.

The Christmas Carousel

A few christmases ago I had the brainwave to climb the Walter Scott monument and photograph the christmas market from above. What is the Walter Scott Monument you ask? Why its that weird black pointy building in the centre of Edinburgh that looks a bit like thunderbird 1. See here for more details on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Monument

As it turned out, the Walter Scott Monument was an excellent vantage point for taking some good shots. It isn't inherently obvious from ground level that the carousel's roof was striped blue and white. Even without the tilt shift effect it nearly looked like a scale model/toy carousel.

The cars help too, somehow cars always add to the tiltshift effect enhancing the image and giving far more of a toy feel. I suppose its psychological? We are all familiar with toy cars from our childhood so somehow our brains more easily convert them to miniature..