Over the last several years I’ve been photographing the annual group shot for a local pipe band called the Stockbridge Pipe Band and this time they asked me to photograph their pipe band concert. Most of my work with them has basically involved shooting a group shot of the whole pipe band complete with all the trophies that they have won that year. Some years they win more trophies, some a bit less and equally their membership changes as well. 2013’s group shot was especially large but it’s great to be able to do this kind of work.

So I was talking to the pipe major a few months ago (pipe major is basically the leader of the band) and he mentioned they would be hosting a 20th anniversary concert at St Stephens Church in New Town Edinburgh.

St Stephen’s Church was built between 1827-1828 and the interior was refitted to how it looks now in 1956. The church has hosted a number of events for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe over the years. Famously for any computer game fans out there, St Stephen’s Church was bought by Leslie Benzies who is the president of Rockstar North who if you’re still not sure are the creators of the controversial but awesome Grand Theft Auto series of games.

So my job was basically to photograph all kinds of things going in the evening. At the start the local Davidson Main’s Pipe Band played visitors up the steps into St Stephen’s Church and this was really funny. On the day, in typical Scottish fashion, it was windy as anything so everyone’s kilts kept blowing up. Most people wore underwear (some very funny looking underwear) but there were a few true Scottish old gentlemen who didn’t wear underwear so as I took pictures from the bottom of the steps I saw more than enough bottoms going up.

All of the band photos above, apart from the couple, are of Stockbridge Pipe Band. I’ve heard them play the regular Scottish bag pipe tunes outside plenty of times but it was great to hear them playing all kinds of different songs. They also had a drum quartet at the end who were really entertaining and sounded great.

The above quartet are world champion bagpipe players. They were clearly technically very competent although I wasn’t so keen on their set.