Edinburgh is a photographer's city that happens to have terrible light half the time, and the trick is realising that the terrible light is the point. Low cloud sitting on the Old Town, haar rolling in off the North Sea, and a sun that stays low all winter produce photographs that a blue sky flattens.

Here is where to be, with the weather each spot wants.

Calton Hill, for the whole city

The most accessible viewpoint: ten minutes uphill from Princes Street, with monuments on the top and a view over the Old Town, Arthur's Seat, and out to the Firth of Forth.

Sunset puts the light on the castle and the ridge of the Old Town. It is also the best place in the city to watch fog fill the valleys below while the towers stay clear.

Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crags, for the climb

An extinct volcano in the middle of the city. The full summit is a proper walk, forty five minutes or so, and the view is the best in Edinburgh. Salisbury Crags, lower and easier, gives you a dramatic cliff edge with the city laid out beneath.

Sunrise, if you can face it. The path is exposed and the wind is real, so a sturdy tripod or none at all.

Victoria Street, mid morning

The curved row of coloured shopfronts under the Old Town, and the most photographed street in Scotland. Shoot from the terrace above, Victoria Terrace, for the classic curve, or from the bottom looking up.

The curved row of coloured shopfronts on Victoria Street

Go before nine. It is a working street of shops and it fills up completely.

The Vennel steps, for the castle

A narrow stone stair off the Grassmarket that frames the castle perfectly between two walls. One of the few castle views that is a photograph rather than a snapshot, and it is small enough that two people fill it.

Late afternoon light hits the castle rock from this angle.

Circus Lane, in the New Town

A cobbled mews of low houses with flowers, a church spire rising behind. The prettiest street in the New Town and entirely residential, so go early, be quiet, and do not set up equipment outside someone's front door.

Dean Village, in the rain

A former mill village in a gorge below the city, ten minutes from Princes Street: water, stone buildings, and a bridge. It photographs best in wet weather when the river runs high and the stone goes dark.

Walk the Water of Leith path from here towards Stockbridge for more of the same without any other photographers.

Greyfriars Kirkyard, in fog

Old gravestones, mausoleums, and a view up to George Heriot's School, which is the building people insist looks like a wizarding school. Atmospheric in mist, ordinary in sunshine.

The Royal Mile and the closes

The main street is busy and the photographs are in the closes: the narrow covered alleys running off it, dark, steep, and framed. Advocate's Close in particular gives you a view down to the New Town through a stone slot.

Early morning or after dark with the lamps on.

Portobello and Cramond, for the coast

Twenty minutes out, a beach with a promenade and beach huts. The practical location for family sessions when the Old Town is a crush, and it faces east so sunrise over the water is available.

Cramond, further west, has a causeway to an island that floods at high tide. Check the tide table, and take the warning signs seriously.

Forth Bridges, at blue hour

Three bridges across the estuary at South Queensferry, including the red cantilever railway bridge. Long exposures at dusk with the bridge lit are the photograph, and there is a decent chance of clear air out here when the city itself is under cloud.

Practical notes

The weather changes every twenty minutes, and this is genuinely a planning consideration rather than a joke. Carry a rain cover, shoot through showers, and wait for the ten minutes of light that follows one. The best photographs in this city happen immediately after rain.

Winter is the good season. The sun never gets high, so golden light lasts for hours in the middle of the day rather than for forty minutes, which makes December and January far more productive than June for a working photographer, despite the short days. Choosing the hour deliberately matters less here than choosing the day.

August is the Festival. The city is unrecognisably busy, every location on this list has a crowd on it, and accommodation prices triple. Good for street photography and impossible for anything requiring space.

Cobbles and hills. Warn clients about footwear in advance. A session that involves the Vennel steps and Circus Lane covers a lot of vertical distance, and it belongs in the confirmation you send before the shoot.

The locations on a map

Across the water, Dublin asks for the same instinct: include the sky, keep shooting through the shower, and let the ten minutes afterwards do the work.