Hello Lovelies, today’s post was going to be about my recent shoot in Edinburgh and technically still is however I won’t really be talking about the photo shoot. Instead I’d like to talk about what I experienced whilst I was walking around Edinburgh getting my photo taken.
I’m going to try not to let this turn into a rant but there’s still a good chance that’s exactly what it will become, so you can’t say I didn’t warn you.
Whilst walking around Edinburgh finding different spots to take photos we encountered some unpleasant members of the public. Always a risk you take when going out and about for a shoot – I know. However I don’t think I should just shrug it off without at least mentioning it.
As we were getting ready to take some photos by a phone box an older gentleman began walking towards us – seeing as we’re nice considerate people we moved out of the way to let him pass – he then began saying something which I honestly couldn’t make out as his speech was very slurred and muddled. It’s likely he was drunk. Which is no excuse frankly. The little that we could make out was along the lines of “grow up”, some remark about what I was wearing and then pointing to my hair. Doing my best not to react we walked away and for a minute he looked like he would follow us. I had said “hope you have a good day sir” because being polite to rude people always makes them mad to which he replied along the lines of “fuck off”. We waited a few minutes and then returned to the phone box to get the pictures we wanted.
Now I know that isn’t very traumatic or exciting but I don’t want to have traumatic or exciting stories when it comes to being harrassed on the street. His behaviour was unacceptable and that’s all I wish to highlight.
A little later we were in Grassmarket and experienced some heckling. This one really wasn’t anything more than a troll but it still irritated me so I’m telling you about it, sorry not sorry.
A gentleman likely not much older than me, I’d guess late 20’s at most, yelled over “I’d love to rub cheesecake all over you” (i might be making it into a proper sentence but the important part was the cheesecake part). This one was just weird. I had no idea how to react to it and we were all baffled as to why you would waste a cheesecake like that. Again I just want to highlight that you shouldn’t be doing this kind of thing.
We also got to experience a stereotype come true when some construction workers wolf whistled at me – that one was quite amusing but still not cool. Honestly I’m just amazed to have lived through that, I thought that only happened in cartoons, tv shows or adverts.
The last negative experience I had with the general public is a little harder to pin down. People were staring. Now again, I’m out in public getting photos taken whilst having blue hair and looking adorable – I should expect people to stare. However it was the fact that so many people were staring and even when I caught their eye to make them aware of the fact that I knew they were staring, they just continued to stare. Plus it wasn’t just during my shoot, it was when I was just walking around with Andy. Even Andy was getting annoyed by the number of people blatantly staring. We both have coloured hair, we’re both used to getting looks off strangers but this was a whole new level and neither of us liked it.
It might seem like I’m getting worked up over nothing and granted everything that happened was fairly minor and I only felt vaguely threatened by the older seemingly drunken gentleman but I hate that this sort of behaviour is normal and that I should expect to deal with it. The other thing to remember is that this happened in broad daylight whilst I had 2 other people with me. So yeah, this turned into a bit of a rant but in fairness I did warn you that it might.
Putting that aside, my shoot went really well. The weather was lovely. Andy and I had some great food and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the pictures turn out.
An Overview Of Blue 