New York photographer rediscovers forgotten archive of '80s Edinburgh street snaps

Acclaimed photographer’s passion for taking pictures began on Capital’s streets 35 years ago

New York photographer Graham Macindoe is up there with the very best in the business, having exhibited work at major art galleries and captured portraits for a formidable roster of well-kent faces over the years, including Anthony Bordain, The White Stripes and Michael Jackson.

Wind the spool back 35 years, however, and we encounter a young punk fan from Broxburn studying painting at Edinburgh College of Art with little desire to pursue a career behind the lens.

Graham Macindoe's archive provides a fascinating glimpse into everyday life in eighties Edinburgh.

That all changed in the mid-eighties when Graham developed a serious passion for documenting street life around the Capital, creating intimate portraits of ordinary people at work, rest and play, including in the city’s neglected housing schemes and the economically bleak parts of Edinburgh that photographers "just didn't go".

Graham’s photos capture Auld Reekie deep in the throes of Thatcherism, with student grants cuts marchers contrasting neatly with snaps of young families enjoying the amusements at Portobello.

Some of the work can be easily categorised. There are several historically valuable shots showing workers at Bruce Waldie’s coal depot at Haymarket – now long gone.

And there are dozens showing bunnet-wearing men at a betting slip littered Powderhall Stadium. Graham visited the long-since demolished venue regularly with a friend for the dog racing.

Graham spent the mid-eighties taking photos around the Capital.

While the candid Edinburgh snaps would guide Graham away from painting towards a career as a photographer in America, the hundreds of black and white negatives he had accrued would end up squirrelled away in boxes for decades.

But recently the 57-year-old photography professor has taken a dust cloth to his forgotten archives and has started posting them in batches to the 40,000-strong Lost Edinburgh Facebook group where they have gone down a treat.

“I hadn’t thought of myself as a photographer," Graham told the Evening News, "I was just someone with a camera who took pictures."

“I’d sort of forgotten about all these. Nobody knew at that point there would be the internet and the ability to share on multiple types of platforms for all sorts of people to comment and engage with.”

Much of Graham's work shows life in Edinburgh's schemes.

The archive's online rebirth has lent it a deeper and more personal meaning, with a growing number of group members recognising late family members, lost school friends and even their infant selves.

One woman identified her late father, blowtorch in hand, working on the foundations of St Leonard’s police station in 1985.

And a mum was over the moon to see her then 4-year-old daughter, now aged 38, pop up in a photo showing children eating a bag of sweets on Easter Road.

Graham says he is always receptive when folk get in touch to ask for photos of a loved one.

The demolished Powderhall Stadium makes an appearance in Graham's photos.

He explains: “I’ve been able to take a picture of someone they know, so the least I can do is give them a picture they can stick on their mantelpiece and remember that person beyond just a digital thing on a screen”.

The author admits the passing decades have dimmed his geographical knowledge of the city. This was perhaps best illustrated when Graham dared refer to Leith Walk’s northernmost extent as the “bottom” of Leith Walk. A platoon of keyboard warriors lined up to stick the “Foot” in.

“Foot o’ the Walk, Fit ay the Walk.. I forget the parochialisms of Edinburgh,” laughs Graham, “but it’s interesting when people recognise someone and you get this whole big stream of comments about who somebody was or who it wasnae, or where it was or where it wasnae. It reveals a lot of things I didn’t know when I took the photo.”

Now, having swapped Broxburn for Brooklyn, Graham's love for street photography persists. While keen to stress he is "not a photo journalist", he says the present coronavirus lockdown has awakened his urge to record the scenes around him.

He said: "It's funny looking through some of the old Edinburgh stuff, it's kinda influencing what I'm doing right now in New York, so it's kind of coming full circle a wee bit."

Graham's eventual hope, once lockdown measures are lifted, is for people to be able to interact with his collection in person.

One woman recognised her father working on the foundations of St Leonard's police station.

He added: “At some point, when all this stuff that’s going on just now comes to an end it would be nice to get an exhibition of them in Edinburgh somewhere.”

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