The Power of Photos

I spent some time today looking through old Facebook photos. I was a little late to Facebook - I didn't get an account until, I believe, 2010, and I didn't use it very much until 2011/12. But I do have some old photos of me on there - and by old, I mean photos when I was about 15. Some of them have gone since the friend who uploaded tons of photos has taken them down, but it's been interesting to see not only what I used to look like, but the things I used to do and the friends I had, many of whom I've lost touch with.

It's easier than ever to take and share photos of yourself, and for all that I do roll my eyes at people who have to photograph every part of their lives - I also tend to, myself, mostly take artsy rather than personal photos - they are really fun to look back at. I'm proud of the landscape scenic photos I've taken but I also like the photos of people I know just having fun. More than anything else, they can be such a strong reminder of parts of your life that you don't think about that often.

They can be a record of who you were with at that moment...

The family mob back in 2009. At least half of us are missing.

My friend group at school on our last day, 2011.

Or of a particular event you may have forgotten...

HAHAHA so this was taken at a benefit concert we were playing at. We got slightly drunk before performing and had a whale of a time backstage.

Of the styles you used to try...

God, I used to spend so much time on my hair. This is dyed and curled with tongs!

Obviously this was not an everyday look! But I had just discovered backcombing.

The places you've been...

On top of Table Mountain in Cape Town, with Robben Island in the distance.

Rehearsal on a music project in Turkey.

Or even hold a premonition of the future in a weird sort of way...

As a seventeen-year-old on a summer school, I am standing on the quad of what, just over a year later, will be my college at Oxford.

So none of these photos are great examples of photography, and a lot of them have no real point to them - no one needed to take photos of us at the benefit concert we organised or disobeying the rules about not standing on the grass (oops...). But what they lack in skill they make up for in memories (and also cringey memories of hairstyles past!).

A March Day in Oxford

I've finished my thesis, it was sunny today... life is good. The only not-good thing was that I went out with my camera to take photos, because I don't take enough of this ridiculously photogenic city, but most of them didn't come out because I forgot to adjust the ISO and they were all massively over-exposed. :( By the time I realised there was no point retaking them, so I just have a few. I got some good ones, anyway.

As it says on the plaque, this is Christ Church War Memorial Garden, part of Christ Church Meadow. You can see the clock tower in the background.

A statue on the side of Magdalen College. Not sure who it is though!

Shadows of the dreaming spires. I edited this to look a bit moodier, I hope it worked...

Pastel houses in Holywell Street!

Anyway, I've been really behind with blogging, but soon enough the term will be over and I'll have nothing to do. Which won't make for very interesting blog posts, but I'll have the time to write said posts.... ah, the circle goes on.

Last of the Oxford Term

(I was trying to play off Last of the Summer Wine, but I'm not sure it worked...)

I was active with my camera the last couple of weeks, trying to capture a sense of Oxford in the cold depths of December. Tomorrow I leave for Amsterdam (and Havanah!) and I won't see Oxford again until January. So long, city! It hasn't snowed yet but you're still beautiful.

Ooh artistic ooh!!

My best friend from school came to visit! She loved our dining hall and dressed for the occasion.

You can see more of the hall here.

The next set of pictures I took one evening walking back to where I was staying (not in my college - they kicked me out and I'm currently staying at a friend's room while she's going back home to Italy). I really love the light in these; evening light in winter can make for some very stark, eerie shots.

And these last ones I just took today, my last day in Oxford. Other than the first one, which is of Hertford College, they were all taken in Radcliffe Square at night.

All photos are unedited because I'm lazy.

Ice Hockey!

On Saturday I went to my first ever ice hockey match. I went with - who else? - a couple of Canadians, my friend Jenny and her boyfriend Jackson. While I knew Oxford had an ice-skating rink, I didn't know ice hockey matches took place there. We were lucky this time, because it was the last (I think) match of the university ice hockey season, between the two best teams in the league: Oxford and London. Obviously I cheered for Oxford. ;)

And this match was, somewhat dramatically, advertised as the Battle of the Burghs.

Wait, that needs to be bigger.

The Battle of the Burghs!!!

That's better. 

Of course, I took photos, though they weren't great since the netting got in the way and my camera kept focusing on the netting rather than the hockey players! I got a few nice shots, however.

And a couple of us at the match.

Ugh, phone quality.

So I ended up enjoying it a lot! I'm not a sports fan and I don't go to matches, but this was really fun.

Oxford Christmas Lights Festival

...happened this weekend! Unfortunately I wasn't able to see a lot of it, because I went to London at midday Saturday, didn't get back until the wee hours, and today I was stuck inside writing an essay. However, Friday night I went out with my friend June and got to see the lights and such.

The light-up toys that are inevitably on sale at these things. I used to live in Canterbury which had a lot of these events and I loved these things!

The moon behind the Sheldonian. :)

A view up Broad Street.

Outside the Oxford Museum of Science.

The Cornmarket - now the Christmas lights have gone up!

The lantern and the moon. I tried so many times to take this photo!

In the Weston Library an "Impromptu Orchestra", which to my understanding means people turn up with their instruments and play, was performing Handel's Messiah.

Unfortunately it was a slightly avant-garde performance and an incredibly annoying woman made an old vinyl recording of the piece cut in and out of the actual music (it wasn't even in time! It was the kind of thing you do when you're a child and making music cut out was really clever) so in the end we left. We went to the Castle Quarter where there was supposed to be a performance involving light-up umbrellas, but we missed it. :(

Got a couple of photos with the lights, though.

June.

And me!

Oxford gets into the Christmas mood early because we have "Oxmas" on the 25th of November, which is the only reason I don't mind Christmas stuff happening before December. It's slightly ridiculous, but it gets me in the mood for Christmas so when I go home I'm really enthusiastic and all my family and friends are still in the "ugh, Christmas comes too early" stage.

Being a Tourist in My Own City

I turned 21 yesterday. As the cliché goes, I don't actually feel any different, but one thing that did happen is that my friend Elise, whom I've known since we were at sixth-form together, came to visit me! She wasn't here very long, but I took the opportunity to show her around Oxford and be a bit of a tourist myself.

Elise outside the Radcliffe Camera, the very distinctive library that mostly houses history and English books.

In Brasenose, which is not my college, but I took her to the nicest-looking ones.

Lovely view of the roof of the RadCam from Brasenose.

In Corpus Christi, that pint-sized college!

The dining hall at Christ Church. And yes, that is the Hogwarts dining hall!

Also in Christ Church: the Harry Potter stairs!

The last few days have been appalling weather in Oxford, with torrential rain, but the last couple of days have been even worse and added gale-force winds to the mix. On certain streets it was almost impossible to walk into the wind. These are the kind of days when you wonder what the point was in styling your hair...