When I was working in an office or at the university, I’d sometimes record my routine in photos. It was before the age of social media, so it was for me only, but I used to take a lot of random photos not knowing anything about how to make them good.
In 2002, I was living in Edinburgh (Scotland) and commuted to Aberdeen where my company had moved after an acquisition. That’s a 128 mile trip I was doing by train. When they worked. The old diesel trains in Scotland are notoriously unreliable. Even by UK standards. Which set the bar pretty low.
I was always carrying my small digital camera with me (a Sanyo SR08). It was rubbish by today’s standards, but at the time it was amazing to have a wee camera that could take those photos that looked decent (remember: no DSLR yet).
On that day, the 25 September 2002, I decided to take photos of my trip to work for some reason. I started a bit late, of course because I was a bit reluctant to take the journey once more. Oh BTW, the watch is indeed Russian. It was given to me in the 80s by my sister’s penpal from Sochi.
I lived in Iona Street. It was my second flat in Edinburgh that I started renting during my PhD when the research assistant/postdoc money started to flood in (joking). It was a huge 28m2 in ex-council tenements, 1 bedroom, 1 living room/kitchen, at a walking distance from city center with its own little front garden.
One of the things that fascinate me in these photos is that the cars you see in them no longer exist. It wasn’t that long ago in my head. But at the same time it was 23 years ago. It’s not like looking at photos of your parents in the 60s, but it’s taking that direction.
I’d walk or take the bus to the city centre, depending on the weather. The ground is nearly always wet or about to be wet. It rains a lot in Edinburgh, and some years are worse than others. When I moved to Edinburgh in 1996, it felt like it was raining every night, but then the days would be sunny. Not any longer by 2002.
Princes Street has changed a lot since that day. the last time I was there many years ago, it was closed to traffic, the shops had changed, the tram went down the middle. It was unrecognisable.
In the city centre, I’d go down to Waverley train station.
The steps going down to the station were like a wind tunnel in the winter. The winds coming up would be crazy some days and people walked at a steep angle like cartoon characters.
This is the tail end of commuting time, so things are getting quiet. I wasn’t in a hurry and I didn’t like crowds, so I’d avoid rush hour on purpose. When I was working at the university, I’d work 11am to 10pm for that reason. I’d know all the night and cleaning staff.
For an inner city train station, Waverley is fairly spacious. I guess the Victorians had space to spare.
I took that shop because it was new to me. Being French I’ve always found amusing that these fake French food shops exist abroad.
This is so Victorian. Cast iron pillars, individual platform roofs. These train stations were works of art.
The first thing the train did leaving Edinburgh was to cross the Firth of Forth. We’d go over the train bridge (constantly being painted red a la Red Dwarf). In the distance, you can see the road bridge that has been replaced because even though at that point it was about 30 years old, it was rusting like mad.
It is insane to me that people lived under the bridge. I remember talking to a resident once and he complained that there’s a constant rain of nuts, bolts, and pieces of metal falling from the bridge. That’s scary.
Not much to do but watch the landscape. In a pre everything mobile, pre social media, pre high speed internet, you just learned to enjoy the boredom.
When I said that the train in Scotland were unreliable, there was a reason: they still had compartments, like French trains when I was a kid. These trains were barely out of the 60s. No wonder they broke down a lot.
Once in Aberdeen, the grey city where even rainbows are grey, I’d make my way to the office. the office was near the station so I’d walk. This train station no longer exists. It was replaced in the late 2000s by something more modern with a shopping mall on top (because of course).
Our office was on the harbour on Waterloo Quay. So we’d see the boats come and go, crans load and unload, lorries being stacked with containers. On Monday morning, the first task would be to clean surfaces from soot because the boats run their engines 24 hours/day and the harbour area is covered in it. Our leaky windows didn’t help.
That’s it, I’m in the office for the rest of the day. Thanks for looking.
#Photography #Photonist #DownMemoryLane #OldPhotos