ANNABEL ILLINGWORTH

Annabel is based in Edinburgh and trained at the London School of Journalism and St Luc Ecole des Beaux Art in Liège, Belgium. She is one of the featured artists in the 2011 Festival exhibtion Four Artists, One City and has produced an exceptional collection of images taken from Edinburgh's rooftops. Here Annabel explains the inspiration behind the project:

'This collection is inspired by historical prints and my time at Edinburgh University, when I fell in love with the architecture while walking across to lectures in the Old Town.  Whenever the sun shines and the stone glows, the wind and rain are soon forgotten.  One can't but help want to make the most of the sunny days, be it on a café terrace, at the Botanical Gardens or up Arthur's Seat.  As such my impression of the city is of its green spaces and beautiful architecture, with a nod to the passage of time, or seemingly lack thereof. 

All the photos are taken from normally inaccessible rooftops so as to get a different perspective on Edinburgh's many iconic scenes.  The idea came about when a friend started work for a company repairing roofs in the New Town and invited me to see the city from their scaffolding.  This, in turn, led me to get in touch with the RGBE, the National Archives of Scotland, the Balmoral Hotel and others, who all generously spared a member of staff to escort me up to their rooftops'.