Edinburgh Fringe Festival Portraits – Black & White

Every August in Edinburgh, Scotland is festival time. And the Fringe Festival gets bigger every year it seems. According to the official stats, this year’s festival consisted of 50,459 performances of 3,314 shows in 313 venues. An estimated 2,298,090 tickets were issued. Not too bad for a city of about 500,000 inhabitants.

During the day, artists promote their shows on the Royal Mile, wearing their stage attire. There are also countless busking musicians and statues. It is quite a sight and replete with photographic opportunities. Most of the characters are quite colourful, but that will be the topic of the next blog posts. For a few of the pictures, it was clear to me that they would look better in (toned) black & white.

Seymour Stiffs the Undertaker posing for the camera during the Edinburgh Fringe festival — Seymour Stiffs, the gregarious undertaker, was more than willing to pose for the camera

Seymour Stiffs the Undertaker photographed on the Royal Mile during the Edinburgh Fringe festival — I hung around for a while after taking the previous photograph, and I was able to take a candid portrait of Seymour, in a more reflective pose.

During the Fringe festival, you’ll see some most unusual things. Like the gentleman below in a wedding dress dancing and handing out leaflets. He belongs to the “Moving Dust” company, based in London. This “emerging company is set up to create ground-breaking performance projects”, according to their website. I have no problem believing that!

Actor from company Moving Dust promoting their show This Much on the Royal Mile during the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh — Gentleman from “Moving Dust” promoting the show “This Much (or an act of violence towards the institution of marriage)

Not everyone in a strange attire on the Royal Mile is promoting a show. Many just pose with tourists in exchange for money, like the Alien Monster below and Darth Vader.