Dark Edinburgh - A City After Hours

Edinburgh is one of the most photographed cities in the world.

Its skyline, closes, and stonework are instantly recognisable - familiar, celebrated, and often busy.

Dark Edinburgh looks elsewhere.

This body of work focuses on the city after hours, when footfall drops, noise softens, and the streets begin to feel different. At night, Edinburgh becomes less performative. Light behaves differently. Surfaces reveal texture rather than colour. The city stops presenting itself and simply exists.

These images aren't about landmarks or spectacle. There are no postcard viewpoints and no attempt to show the city “at its best”. Instead, the images sit in quieter spaces -pavements reflecting streetlight, empty corners, long shadows cast across familiar stone. What matters here is atmosphere rather than narrative.

Much of the work is made slowly. Locations are revisited, sometimes repeatedly, waiting for the right combination of light, weather, and stillness. Timing matters more than chance. Restraint matters more than coverage. The aim is not to document everything, but to notice what often goes unseen.

Edinburgh doesn’t disappear at night - it changes character.

Without crowds, the city feels more introspective. Details sharpen. Silence becomes part of the composition. In these moments, the city feels less like a destination and more like a place with its own internal rhythm.

Dark Edinburgh sits alongside Scotland in Frame as a more stripped-back, contemplative body of work. Where much of the wider collection celebrates place through colour and light, this project leans into shadow, tone, and mood. It offers an alternative reading of the city - one shaped by patience rather than immediacy.

The city doesn’t sleep.

It just gets quieter.