I recently walked down the Water of Leith to Stockbridge on a frosty day. I've been taking photos along this river (although, 'river' seems too strong a word) since 2020 when we lived nearby and would take our permitted daily lockdown walks here. The water creates a natural wildlife corridor through the city. There are good paths along most of it. Sometime in the last couple of years, I started to think I'd like to collect some of the photographs I've made along the river (and some I've yet to make) in a photo book. I'm not sure what form it would take, just that the subject would be the Water of Leith and its immediate surroundings. Recently, I've been committing more to photographing this series on film in 6x6 format. It might be a year or two before I have gathered enough work for a book, but that's my longer-term idea.
My first medium format film camera was a 6x6 twin-lens reflex, like the one I used here (though not the same camera). I've used other formats since (645 and 6x7) but there's something about square that I find very warming and comforting. It's hard to explain. Perhaps it's just because of the memories I attach to this format, or maybe it's because of the simplicity of composition within a square frame. Either way, I'm enjoying working with this format again.
These were all photographed with a Yashica Mat 124G on Kodak Gold 200 film, digitised with a DSLR and converted using Filmomat's SmartConvert software.
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