In the limelight

Photographers huddle in the rain, in the sun, under brollies and awnings and every single day, every thirty minutes or so, an author creeps from the yurt - often bashfully - to have his or her photo taken. There's a nice little area set up just behind the press pod, a backdrop of carpet held up by what looks like scaffolding poles, expertly put together by our magnificent site team and made to resemble a mini outdoor studio. And it is here those bashful authors pose for the cameras. This isn't the most comfortable moment of their visit of course - writers by nature are quite unlike the luvvies of the show-biz world - courting the limelight and showing-off in front of the cameras isn't really their style. I should add that there are of course some notable exceptions to this but I shan't divulge details... So, it takes a skillful photographer to come up with beautiful and interesting shots of our authors especially as the subject is available for no more than a few minutes before being whisked off to do their event. Murdo MacLeod is one such photographer - have a look at his brilliant photo montage from this year's Book Festival. Make sure you view it with speakers as he's also included a soundtrack of event excerpts to accompany the images: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/audioslideshow/2009/aug/27/edinburghfestival