Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Edinburgh

As February draws to a close, I haven't yet completed a draft of that novella set in Edinburgh I'm working on (these things always take longer than expected, as I should have learned by now!). But here's a last set of Edinburgh photos before exploring a new set of photos for March.

Sir Aurthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes stories, was born in Edinburgh and attended medical school at the University of Edinburgh. He based Sherlock Holmes on his med school lecturer Joseph Bell. There's a bronze Sherlock Holmes statue in Conan Doyle's honor on Picardy Place, near where he was born.

Not far past the statue is the walk up Calton Hill, which goes past an old cemetery...

...and leads to some of the best views of the city. 

 —Gigi

Edinburgh Through a Fisheye Lens

Today was one of those days where I felt really happy with my decision to organize my photos in this public way through the Gargoyle Girl photo blog. Without publicly declaring that I'd go through more than fifteen years worth of old photos, most of which are negatives, I never would have stuck with the project.

I said at the beginning of February that I'd post cool photos of Edinburgh this month, since I'm working on a novella set in the city. Once I said it out loud (well, I wrote it online, but you know what I mean), I had no choice but to stick to going through my digitized Edinburgh photos from over the years. As I did so, I had the strongest feeling there was a set of photos I'd forgotten. After a few minutes of digging, I found a CD full of scanned negatives from a trip from six years ago, right before I switched to taking most of my photos digitally. One of the rolls of film was shot with a fun fisheye lens. Here are a few of those photos.

Edinburgh Castle in the distance from Princes Street.

The Bedlam Theatre, where I acted in a play during college. I love the architecture of this building.

An iconic British phone booth.

—Gigi

Edinburgh's Alleys

All month I'll be working on a novella with an Edinburgh setting, so here are some more photos of Edinburgh. Today I'm posting a few photos of closes—the shared alleyways between old buildings that fill the city. They're often steep, narrow, and full of mystery.

—Gigi

Edinburgh in Black & White

I'm currently writing a mystery set in Edinburgh. The characters in my first novel, Artifact (released August 2012), make a quick stop in Edinburgh on their quest to find a missing treasure. I love Edinburgh, so I was always disappointed that they didn't get to spend longer in the city. Now that I'm working on a novella with the same characters, I realized Edinburgh would be the perfect place to set this particular mystery story.

Going through my old Edinburgh photographs from over the years, I noticed that I shot a lot of black & white film there. The photos below are all scans of black & white negatives. It's a mysterious city, making it the perfect place for both black & white photos and for a mystery story.

Edinburgh Castle from Princes Street

  

Old Calton Cemetery, Edinburgh

View of Edinburgh from Calton Hill

Looking out at the city from Edinburgh Castle

—Gigi

Passageways

I've been having trouble finishing this draft of the manuscript I'm working on. It's the draft that counts. Not my beloved first draft where I'm having fun exploring ideas and characters and plot twists, or even the enticing second draft where I'm putting the pieces together and can see them take shape. No, this is the one where I have to make all those ideas work, and the one I'll be sending to my agent in a short time.

I can almost see the light at the end. Almost.

To help me get there, I've got some photos I've taken of passageways. These remind me that it's the journey that counts -- and that yes, I will indeed get to that end.

Brompton Cemetery in London

An alley in Edinburgh

A grove of trees at the Claremont Colleges

I didn't take this last one -- it's a photo of me taking a photo of a cemetery passageway.

--Gigi

Shadows in Scotland

In the 1700s, the city of Edinburgh, Scotland was an overcrowded town on the cusp of the Industrial Revolution. To create more space, they decided to build down.

The Vaults were originally meant to hold the extra merchandise of businesses, but soon people were living in the dark, airless spaces. Lack of light, ventilation, and sanitation quickly took its toll. Within a few decades, the vaults became uninhabitable. The city filled in the underground caverns, and tried to erase their existence -- along with everything that had happened there.

Legend has it that the famous body snatchers of Edinburgh used the underground vaults. It's no wonder that when the vaults were rediscovered in the 1980s, a series of ghost stories followed.

A few years ago I attended Ghost Fest in Edinburgh, during which a series of tours lead groups through the vaults at night. Some of them used costumed assistants to jump out and scare people, but others relied on the chilled air and squeaking hinges that exist on their own.

Guess which one was more frightening?

As a mystery writer and a fan of mysteries of all kind, I do love hints of the macabre. It's the hints that are the most fun.

Below are two photos of Edinburgh that use light to show the mystery of the city.

 Edinburgh Castle through the trees, taken with a Holga plastic camera.

 An Edinburgh Close, a small alley leading downward. I wonder where it leads...

--Gigi