June 29, 2022
Social Meet-up – Botanics
A social meet-up with a couple of hours of photography at the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh. Want to join us next time?
Photography can be a solitary hobby. Many photographers enjoy being in the wilderness alone, just their camera for company. I must confess that I love being by the water and watching the conditions change to try and get a perfect picture. At the start of the year, I thought it would be a good idea to break the mould, reach out to past attendees from my workshops, and arrange a social meet-up every two or three months. Last Saturday, I held the second social meet-up session at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, and I thought it would be great to share a few photos from the day from those that came along and a few of my own.
How the session works
The social meet-up sessions are quite different to my usual workshops. Firstly, they are free of charge. I think it’s great to see learning from the Switch to Manual workshops put into action. It’s also good to reignite the spark if life has got in the way since someone took one of my courses. Secondly, the sessions are much less prepared, so any help and advice can be more fluid. So it was last weekend where a small group met up at the Botanics in Edinburgh.
The location was going to deliver photography opportunities. Obviously, there would be flowers. There are often squirrels and birds, so wildlife photography might be on the cards. With excellent views across the city, landscape photography might also be something we’d cover. With this vague plan, we set off around the gardens.
Fast-moving creepy crawlies
The first location allowed us to photograph some of the many bees buzzing around the flowers below the herbaceous border at the north of the gardens. This was an excellent opportunity to try out back-button focus to make it easier to photograph these speedy insects moving from flower to flower. I’ve added a rather excellent photograph by one of the people who came along, Gerry Bord
One of the things I was pleased to see was that I wasn’t the only one passing on advice. Despite the group being relatively small, there were little gems of help being proferred to help everyone get some lovely photos.
Reflections of water-lilies
The second stop was the fountain in front of Inverleith House. We were treated to a fine display of the water-lilies flowering in the pond. They are beautiful flowers, and it’s easy to try and take photographs as we see them walking past the fountain. However, there is far more impact gained by getting low and shooting across the water. This lovely shot by Ian Young is an example of what can be achieved by looking differently at a scene.
The Squirrel Whisperer
As we headed down from the highest point in the gardens, we came across a gentleman feeding the grey squirrels. He is a regular visitor to the gardens and has built relationships with the little critters. By making a clicking noise and beckoning them toward him, the rodents came down from the trees to pick up a nut that was being offered. I’d suggested that it might be helpful to bring a handful of nuts, but this unexpected assistance gave us all the chance to spend time snapping instead of feeding. Again, getting low changes the way we see these animals and puts us eye-to-eye with them.
Rain didn’t stop play
Our afternoon of shooting could have been interrupted by the rain that had been threatening to come on. Fortunately, this occurred just as we reached the pagoda in front of the Chinese Gardens, providing a little bit of shelter to continue taking pictures. Not being a flower expert, I hope Google has correctly identified these colourful flowers as Primula Vialli or Red Hot Pokers. Another photo from Ian captured them well.
No sign of a Kingfisher
My vague plan for the day continued at the large pond. The usual water birds such as ducks and moorhens are available as photo subjects. However, we hoped to see a Kingfisher who occasionally visits the trees at the water’s edge. One of the aspects of wildlife photography that isn’t always captured in a photo is the patience required to wait for the bird or animal to appear. Despite staring into the trees, we didn’t spot the colourful bird, but a heron did give us something to photograph as it fed. Attendee May Cruikshank did a good job catching the moment it dipped its beak into the water.
We moved to another clump of trees where the kingfisher is often seen close to the waterfall that flows from the Alpine Garden into the pond. There was still no sign of the bird, but it allowed us the chance to photograph the flowing from the waterfall. May captured a lovely abstract image of a small portion of the waterfall.
Here comes the sun
Typically for a Scottish summer, we saw all four seasons in a couple of hours. Our final shooting point was the Gunnera manicata near the East Gate of the gardens. These plants, also known as Brazillian Giant Rhubarb, collapse into ugly piles of dead leaves in the winter. However, as we move from spring to summer, they explode into huge plants with leaves over 2 metres wide. The sun started to shine, providing light to shoot through the leaves and highlighting the lizard-like texture captured by Ian.
Our next Social Meet-up will be in another couple of months. If you are usually a lone photographer, why not come and join us? The best way to find out when the next session will take place is to sign up for my monthly newsletter below. I’m sure you’ll enjoy some social photography and will leave you with a comment from Ian that captures the essence of the session;
“It was a lovely relaxing afternoon. I have been to the Botanics many times but saw things yesterday that I would have missed if I had being walking round by myself.”
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As well as running Edinburgh Photography Workshop, Rich Dyson is a professional photographer. His photographs are regularly used in newspapers such as The Times, Guardian and Daily Telegraph. He also had two solo exhibitions and was featured in a members-sponsored exhibition in the Scottish Parliament. You can see and buy his photography at richdysonphotography.com.