TL;DR – They’re wind turbine jacket foundations. They were made in China by COOEC–Fluor Heavy Industries, and shipped here on the heavy transport ship Hua Yang Long. They are being stored temporarily in the Port of Leith before being installed in the Inch Cape Offshore Wind Farm – about 15km off the coast of Angus.

If you go pretty much anywhere with a view of the coastline in Edinburgh just now, you’ll see these huge jacket foundations dominating the skyline. They’re each about 80m tall, they’re bright yellow, and they’re impossible to miss. They’re also a dream subject for an urban photographer.

Yes, they really are huge. This is what they look like from Musselburgh Lagoons.

The colour is safety yellow – a bright shade with good visibility which is often used offshore so that they are easily spotted from a distance. In an urban context, they look staggeringly out of place.

Yes, the yellow really is that bright.

Surprisingly, unless you’re looking at them in the distance it’s quite hard to capture the sense of scale. Snapshots are easy. They’re right there, in your eyeline. They’re hard to miss. But they’re also quite distant, surrounded by dock buildings which themselves have little sense of scale. Yes, it’s a warehouse. But warehouses come in all sizes so it doesn’t really convey just how big they are.

After a few attempts, I finally captured the sheer size of these foundations by stepping back slightly from the waterfront, using the more familiar architecture of The Shore to provide a sense of scale. They really are quite remarkable structures.

By photographing the jacket foundations as a backdrop to Victoria Swing Bridge and the adjacent block of flats, I managed to convey just how enormous they are