Edinburgh of my Dreams (2023)

“This is a city of shifting light, of changing skies, of sudden vistas. A city so beautiful it breaks the heart again and again.”

Alexander McCall Smith

I know I am so behind in sharing travel snips in this space this year (I’ve been to a lot of places lately, I can’t even keep up) but this is too good to be tucked away. I finally crossed off one of the items in my never ending bucket list in life: to have a photoshoot in the literary city of Edinburgh!

(Note: Photo dump of my face incoming)

I went to Edinburgh this August for a personal appointment. As I was booking my accommodations for it, I came across the photoshoot options in the Airbnb Experience – and I’m so glad I did. I was travelling solo and was kinda worried of lugging a tripod to take my pictures due to the amount of people in the place (it was the tail-end of the Edinburgh International and Fringe Festival!) so I figured this was a great solution. And so I booked a photo session (which is also my first personal photo shoot ever!).

We walked around Old Town – and took pictures everywhere. Even in little pockets of the place I didn’t really think were photogenic, but somehow it worked. Edinburgh is a beautiful city in it’s own, full of character – so finding these places is no surprise.

The thing that made me nervous about this beforehand was knowing how to pose. While I know this is staged, I wanted the photos to look casual. I know I post a lot of pictures of myself but I am really so conscious of cameras that most times, I come across as stiff. Good thing, the photographer really made me comfortable and even taught me a couple of poses, told me what to do and where to go.

With the amount of people around that day, it was a bit tricky framing some of the shots. But I’m still so happy with how the photos turned out. And I think these are some of the best photos I’ve ever had of me in my life – so perfectly in line with what I have envisioned. I highly recommend this experience!

It was a nice place and time to take out my Kafka in the wild after a while, a book that has accompanied me on various travels since 2015. I’ve been here twice and I still discover random spots to love: whether it be a bookstore, a café, a restaurant, even a place to just sit and chill. I’ll never get tired of exploring you, Embra! (I’ll probably post a follow up entry regarding this trip because I also visited a couple of bookish spots around the city. Literary tourism – it’s a thing I do so much lately.)

Old Town, Edinburgh, Scotland
August 26, 2023

All photos were taken by Vasileios Vasakos, an Edinburgh-based photographer. You can contact him or look for his listing in Airbnb is you want a similar experience. I really recommend his services! He’s also fun to talk to. 😀

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A couple of tips if you’re booking a photoshoot:

• Book the photographer whose style of shooting and editing is in line with what you want. – I really wanted a moody edit to really embody how I see Edinburgh and that’s what I got.
• Tell your booked photographer if you have any request/preference beforehand. – I told him I wanted a dark academia vibe and I am so glad with the results.
• Choose your outfit for the shoot. – Of course this is a no-brainer but since this is a walking photoshoot, you need to make sure all elements of the outfit is comfy. I wore heeled boots, although they are relatively broken in, I still have battle scars in my legs right now. Also, I know it’s pretty common sense, but you’ll only have one outfit in countless photos. I suppose there is still the choice to bring/wear something on to get the illusion that it’s a different outfit at one point – for more variety in the photos. But this is only something that I thought about after, for myself.
• Pack light for the walk. – Guilty of doing the opposite because I was exploring in the morning and I had a lot of stuff in my backpack to sustain me (an extra shoe for when my feet hurt, a tripod, a book, a notebook, an umbrella, and other stuff that I probably shouldn’t have brought lol; what can I say, I am not a light packer). I wanted my backpack to be in some of the photos but sometimes it also got in the way.
• Bring a prop if you need. – I brought my Kakfa on the Shore copy for this shoot because I wanted it to be bookish-themed. And I just loved how the purple on the book popped out so much in some of the photos. (I can also spy the Fullybooked price tag in one of the photo and it honestly made me laugh. Ah, 2015 you’re such a long time ago now. *sigh*)

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