Around the winter solstice the sun rises over Edinburgh after half past eight and sets before four, and in between it never climbs far above the chimney pots. For a photographer that makes December hard to beat, provided you can live with the weather. On a clear day the light stays low and warm from breakfast until teatime, when blue hour arrives, and the sandstone goes from honey to slate in the space of an afternoon. Rain falls on about half the days, so carry a cover for the camera and move fast when the sky breaks.
Calton Hill is the easy sunrise climb. From the top the sun comes up in the south-east over Holyrood Park and Arthur's Seat, and to the west the Dugald Stewart Monument makes the classic foreground for the Old Town and the castle. You will rarely need to be in position before half past eight, which is the one civilised thing about a Scottish winter dawn.
Victoria Street, its coloured shopfronts curving down towards the Grassmarket, is at its emptiest before the shops open. In Stockbridge, Circus Lane is normally strung with lights in winter. It is a residential mews, so keep your voice down and your tripod out of people's doorways.
The Christmas market in East Princes Street Gardens opens in mid-November in most years and runs into early January, with the Big Wheel lit above the stalls. Shoot it in the twenty minutes after sunset, while the sky still holds enough blue to balance the bulbs; leave it later and you get bright dots on black. The wheel's enclosed pods give a raised view over the lights to the castle, but you are shooting through glass, so press the lens hood flat against it to kill the reflections.
Castle of Light turns Edinburgh Castle into a projection show on selected evenings from late November into early January, and Christmas at the Botanics lights up the Royal Botanic Garden on selected evenings from late November until just before New Year. Both run on timed tickets, so book, and read the tripod rules before carrying one across town.
Hogmanay normally opens on 29 December with the Torchlight Procession, thousands of flaming torches carried through the Old Town. The route changes, so study the published map and find a raised spot along it. Around a second's exposure on a braced camera turns the procession into a river of flame. On the 31st the ticketed Street Party fills Princes Street and the midnight fireworks go up from the castle. Without a ticket, Calton Hill gives a clear line to the castle, but it fills early, so be up there well before ten. Focus manually on the castle before midnight, since autofocus hunts in the dark, and make the first burst count. It tends to be the cleanest frame of the night, before the smoke drifts across.