Davy Richards Best Pics

By molly1971

What do points make...?

There's a fairly big story with this picture so if you're not into these little bits then best skip this..
Trying to squeeze the taxi through a gap going down the mound I could hear the sound of the taxis chrome wheel trim scraping badly off the kerb...bad news .I pulled into St Giles St to inspect the damage as it was well lit up and was amazed to see there was no damage at all.
It was at this point I became aware of beautiful classical guitar music.. very loud from around the corner and I had to go see who was playing. It was 12:30 at night and I wasn't expecting anyone to be entertaining so late so I was amazed to see this guy playing.
My camera was in the bag and I already had my blip photo for the day so carried on up to the lights which were at red. Also there were people everywhere and the reason I'm out here is to make money so....
As I sat there I couldn't get the image of him out of my mind ; he was colourful, his guitar was really odd but the most interesting thing was the tiny floor light he had shining on him was casting a huge shadow of himself on the building he was standing in front of.
At this point I couldn't drive away and miss this amazing photo opportunity so I carefully done a U-turn and parked across the street and as I often do I opened my window and lazily started snapping away. I then heard a voice over my right shoulder through the drivers window which was also open saying, "Nice photo mate".. I turned around and there was a policeman standing at my window. He went on to warn me that it was 3 points for going through a red light!.. Apparently when I did my U-turn the front of my taxi crossed onto George 4th Bridge. If I've learned anything in my 12 years of driving a black cab it's not too backchat with the police.. they simply cannot stand a decent person trying to stand their ground so I did what I do best and grovelled for forgiveness (If groveling to the police was an Olympic event I'd be centre podium every time).
He let me off with a warning and I drove away checking my nose in the mirror to see what shade of brown it was. Anyway I was happy cause I just got some great pics... or so I thought.
Waiting on my next fare I decided I couldn't wait to see the results and sent the pics from my camera to my phone (very high tech me)..
To say I was disappointed was an understatement.. even although his body was fine the spotlight had lit his face up so much that it was completely burnt out to white. It's one thing not getting an exposure right but I felt I would never get that chance again.
About an hour later I dropped off at Haymarket and thought bugger it.. I'm going to switch my light off and head back up there to see if he was still there. I drove through the Grassmarket which was like a scene from War of the Worlds when all the people are trying to get in Tom Cruise's van. I'm losing money hand over fist just to get a photo.
I arrived just in time to hear him say, "And this will be my last number.." so I parked the taxi and jumped out this time, went to start shooting and realized my battery was dud as I had left the camera on when transferring the last photos. I ran (yes ran) back to the taxi and got my spare battery then back to the area he was playing .
I don't know if it's just me that gets into this state when taking pics but my heart was pounding and I managed to get some proper images this time.

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