The City Art Centre in Edinburgh is currently hosting three excellent photography exhibitions. These are: Edinburgh: A Lost World. No Ruined Stone, and Glean, a superbly curated exhibition which presents the work of 14 pioneering women photographers and filmmakers working in Scotland during the early 20th century.

An 'In Conversation' event on Saturday (10 December) provided significant insights into Ron O'Donnell's evocative photos of shops and other interiors (Edinburgh: a Lost World). O'Donnell was joined by Daryl Green, head of special collections at Edinburgh University, and Malcolm Dickson of Street Level Photoworks in Glasgow. Their discussion examined the place of photography in the evolution of O'Donnell's career, as well as the role of photography in evoking and exploring the past.

For the historian Raphael Samuel, the rise of photography can be related to a 'heightened awareness of the visual', which 'invaded every sphere of national life' during the 1960s. This was typified by the newspaper colour supplements which became so prominent in that era. A widespread interest in old photographs is also, according to Samuel, a relatively recent phenomenon. The 'pinnacle of esteem' achieved by photography in the 1970s led to a number of significant photographic archives being discovered, secured and properly curated. These have added immeasurably to the richness of our national history.

Nostalgia is also part of it. Nostalgia is widely seen, as Samuel puts it, not primarily about the past 'but about felt absences or lack in the present'. However, as Dickson put it, there are different types of nostalgia. It can be reflective and restorative. These aspects are prominent in O'Donnell's exhibition.

Lost worlds
Interest in Edinburgh's past has been supercharged by online forums such as Lost Edinburgh. This has, as Dickson noted, inspired the formation of a Lost Glasgow group. These groups help provide a narrative which plug the gaps in the histories of the cities. While many photographers were fixated on dereliction, the photographs which feature on these forums include many of residential streets and workplaces. These have evoked deep memories and have been imbued with information by the members of these online groups.

The majority of photographs shared on such pages are the work of keen amateurs. Many of the images are both of great interest and high quality, but the professional can provide an added dimension. Edinburgh is lucky to have been captured by the lenses of a number of photographers with a true artistic eye.

These include Robert Blomfield, whose treasure trove of photographs has already been the focus of two excellent exhibitions, including one at the City Art Centre in 2018-19. His archive is now being contextualised, catalogued and digitised by a University of Edinburgh team led by Green. O'Donnell's photographs are very different from Bloomfield's in style and character, but both exhibit a serious engagement with international trends in photography and artistic flair.

Evocative power
There is no doubt that photographs from the past can have great power to rekindle memory. Displayed on the screen as the audience congregated was a photo taken by O'Donnell while making his way to Napier college (as it was then) where he studied photography. The photo shows someone trying a primitive form of paddle boarding on the canal at Fountainbridge in the 1970s. Though this area is much changed, the location was fairly clear.

I was transported back several years to an even colder winter day, when tragedy almost struck at this spot. Skiving double physics, I, along with three other truants, spotted a football lying on the ice of a frozen canal. One of us foolishly tried to fetch the football. He reached the ball without incident, the ice gently creaking under him but holding firm. On his way back, he plunged through the ice, howling as his lower body sank into the freezing water. Thankfully, he was just within reach and we hauled him out, his sodden body shivering violently on the canal side. As I waited for the event to begin, I had been transported back to a very specific time and place: to a memory I'd somewhat repressed. An example of how powerful photographs can be.

The fashion for lost Edinburgh has given us a richer picture of the city, beyond the familiar tourist sites. This exploration of other Edinburghs is exemplified by Paul Duke's exhibition, No Ruined Stone, of starkly powerful photographs of Muirhouse, where Duke grew up. Exactly the kind of place tourists rarely visit and that doesn't appear on postcards. However, they are important parts of the city that are often misrepresented.

The project was a 'disconcerting' one for Duke who, on his return to the area, discovered that both his childhood home and school had been demolished in the intervening years. 'My physical past had been erased', as he put it. That sense of loss pervades Duke's photographs as does a more optimistic spirit borne of his conversations with Muirhouse's present day residents. With compelling portraits interwoven with pictures of liminal places and buildings, the resident's narrative forms the theme. As the brutalist structures erode and soften, there is a sense of time passing through.

Evoke not tell
As Samuel puts it, 'any photography, whether or not it aspires to the status of art, has a hidden aesthetic'. Framing is 'necessarily theatrical'. This theatrical aspect is very much foregrounded in O'Donnell's photographs, particularly in a photo of the stage in a church hall on Dalry Road. They are 'theatrical sets without actors' as he put it. Devoid of living beings (apart from a cat which snuck into a photograph of a 'Pet Bureau' in Fleshmarket Close), his photographs of shops have a mysterious character to them. There's also something faintly apocalyptic about them; what has happened to the people? His photo of an air-raid shelter on St Leonard's Hill captures this element well.

O'Donnell's photograph of the Ian Cunningham Garage in Belford Mews features a strange light emerging from beneath the floor. It's deeply suggestive, as if it's a passageway to another dimension. As Green put it, O'Donnell's photographs 'leave us questioning'; there is a deep uncertainty about them. I'm reminded of Martha Sandweiss's comment that 'the capacity of photographs to evoke rather than tell, suggest rather than explain' is what makes them 'so alluring'. Certainly, O'Donnell's photographs draw you in as you explore them for hidden details and meaning.

A manic obsession
In recounting the evolution of his photography, O'Donnell admitted that, initially at least, he had little thought of the possible documentary value of the photographs. They only emerged in time, as many of the shops disappeared. Afterwards, he talked about his failed efforts to photograph a shop in St Stephen Street in Stockbridge. After being rebuffed several times by the owners of the shop, it closed down almost overnight and his opportunity had gone. It's a reminder to all those involved in recording and archiving of the impermanence of the present.

Having started with a basic instamatic camera, he became increasingly serious about his equipment. After getting hold of a Leica 35mm, he would cycle around the city like 'a manic obsessive', looking for possible places to photograph. O'Donnell had enjoyed the process of going through his archive. Initially seeing it as 'just stuff I did in the past', he hadn't realised that they 'had such power'. He was relieved that they were mostly in good condition, though they had required a significant amount of cleaning and dust removal. Each took three or four hours to thoroughly clean. This laborious process had revealed interesting details, such as the content of graffiti on the walls of a prison cell in one of the most striking images.

While taking photographs in the street and other public places might be a source of suspicion these days ('where is it going to be posted?'), in the 1970s all people thought was 'who is the strange guy with a tripod?'. As he wasn't perceived as a threat, he often managed to gain access to hard to reach places. Being seen as non-threatening meant he could generally get on with it without interruption.

Because O'Donnell had not had an eye to posterity, he had not kept detailed records of the photos he took. He now regrets not doing so. Certainly in a number of cases, it's not clear exactly in which shop they were taken. Again, this adds to the mysterious aspects of the exhibition. He had been pleasantly surprised when looking over his early work. What struck him was the clear correlation between his early photography and the installation work which subsequently became his primary focus. His later career made more sense when viewed retrospectively; there was a clear seam which ran through it.

Documenting change
While many photographers have captured seismic changes and dramatic events, O'Donnell's photographs reveal subtle but significant shifts in the city and society. His photographs capture the massive growth of supermarkets and the resultant decline 'in shops which just sold one thing': butchers, fishmongers, ironmongers, tobacconists. A brush shop on Victoria Street is captured in one of the finest images in O'Donnell's exhibition. Visitors from other countries are best able to see how dominant supermarkets are in British society. Their steady penetration into local streets is captured indirectly in O'Donnell's photos.

The picture of Young and Saunders grocers on Queensferry Street (taken in 1980) depicts one of the many shops which have disappeared. But remnants of the shop still survive. The shop at Number 5 is now an Oddbins, but the Young and Saunders name is still to be seen on the front step as you enter. Also, the Better Beverage Company sold a Young and Saunders coffee blend from their shop on Morrison Street until a few years ago. That shop has become part of Lost Edinburgh, though The Better Beverage Company still lives on – in Leith.

There are many such remnants of lost Edinburgh if you look closely enough and speak to those with the unofficial knowledge of the city. As O'Donnell noted, his 1980 photo of Summerhall captures a space which has not changed in appearance but has changed in use (from a veterinary college to an arts venue). O'Donnell's photo of the public toilets near the Tron has a faintly glamorous tinge. Although the loos still exist physically, they are no longer open to the public. O'Donnell's photographs offer a version of the city which is nearly but not completely beyond our grasp.

Particularly poignant for many will be O'Donnell's photos of record stores. Though the 'vinyl revival' of the 21st century has helped many survive, several have disappeared in recent years. Unknown Pleasures and Record Shak (a classic old school record store) among them. One record emporium that still lives on is the highly eccentric Backtracks Music on Brougham Street. O'Donnell's photo of Backtracks captures the way the shop encircles customers with invasive piles of old records and CDs. If anything, the shop has become even more cluttered than when O'Donnell photographed it in 2010!

We are very fortunate that several highly accomplished photographers have captured Edinburgh and still continue to do so. The three current photography exhibitions at the City Art Centre are thoroughly absorbing. The richness of each makes them worthy of repeated viewings.

Charlie Ellis is a researcher and EFL teacher who writes on culture, education and politics

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