Last Sunday, whilst in Edinburgh, I revisited Greyfriars Kirkyard, where sitting on a table-tombstone I ate my sandwich lunch. The sun was shining, the birds were singing and colourful tourists were being shown around in small groups by a number of guides.
I took many photographs and found more ‘new’ stories to follow. One tour guide came over to me and said “I have never seen anybody take a photograph of that tombstone”. It was a small, partly hidden tombstone, and certainly not ornate. I explained that I was drawn to the lost and forgotten; to the obscure and the unknown. The guide smiled back at me and said he approved of my determination/outlook. After finishing his tour he came back over and took me to see some ancient graffiti in a burial vault. We had a great chat and I was able to tell him stories of some of the ‘incumbents’ of Greyfriars: stories that he had never heard before.
Before leaving, a young robin joined me as I sat on another tombstone to take a sip of juice. In this place of lost, I could feel hope. [I should say, not in a religious sense, as I follow no religion].
The following sketches have been formatted from some of my photographs by AI [based on a wide range of prompts given to AI].
