My brilliant idea failed

My brilliant idea failed.

There is a spot in Edinburgh’s Pentland Hills that I keep revisiting. I have been there five times over the past year with the hope and anticipation that I can finally capture the aerial photo and video clip that has been in my head.

For various reasons, such as the position of the sun or the amount of cloud cover, I have never quite got this shot right.

In this video I set out for a sixth (and hopefully final) time at sunrise to capture the elusive shot that has been in my head for such a long time.

The underwhelming result leads me to consider the nature of an ‘Expectation Hangover’. The author Christine Hassler loosely describes this as being, “a situation where something doesn’t turn out the way we want it to, or we don’t quite get the satisfaction we thought we would from a particular result.”

After my trek in the Pentland Hills, I also take an impromptu visit to the north side of Edinburgh to have a look around North Queensferry. The three bridges across the Firth of Forth are so familiar to me, but I realised that I had never actually taken the time to look at them from the north side.

On a beautiful sunny morning, I capture footage of the three bridges on a day when there’s barely a whisp of wind and the water is perfectly still.

The footage that I film for this video makes me consider the difference between meticulously planned and unplanned shoots and how both have their benefits. A valuable lesson that can be applied to life.