Tag Archives: Oxford

0504, 2011

What lies around the corner?

Joseph/ April 5, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

Don’t we all ask that question in our lives? Time and time again. But the very same question’s meaning changes as many times over the years. However, I especially like a child’s version of that query. It reminds me of the time when everything was new to my eyes and seemed curiously mysterious – when around every corner laid a new world of wondrous possibilities and when anything could be imagined. A time when preoccupations revolved around which toys to play with next. But then again, as serious as life may

0304, 2011

Unwatched solitude.

Joseph/ April 3, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

“Nowhere can man find a quieter or more untroubled retreat than in his own soul.” ~ Marcus Aurelius ~

3003, 2011

A City that breathes Education.

Joseph/ March 30, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

There are many things that I like about this place. But I have to admit that ultimately, none of them beats the academic atmosphere that you feel around you all the time. People walking around with books, dons marching around, students rushing to their tutorials. I’ll stop here because this is bound to become a very long post otherwise!

2803, 2011

Golden Walls

Joseph/ March 28, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 1 comments

I snap enough photos of Christ Church as it is. But then light up the place with breathtakingly warm sunlight and it suddenly seems like new life has been breathed into the ancient walls as they glow with the most golden of colours. And it is on such occasions that I find myself wondering how the good, old college members of the past must have paused occasionally to behold the same unchanging views. Who knows what might have crossed the minds of the likes of John Locke, Robert Hooke, Lewis Carroll,

2503, 2011

The Bridge of Sighs

Joseph/ March 25, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 1 comments

Here is a picture of one of the major tourist attractions in Oxford – Hertford college’s Bridge of Sighs designed by Sir Thomas Jackson and completed in 1914. A famous legend about the bridge says that a long time ago, the bridge was closed so that the students would be forced to exercise themselves by taking the stairs since a health survey had shown Hertford students to be the heaviest. As much as we would all like this story to be true, it is sadly not – and actually it turns

2403, 2011

Tom Tower

Joseph/ March 24, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

Today, I present to you Tom Tower of Christ Church. This is a picture which is not so original in either subject or composition. But when the weather is fantastic, you’ve got to make the most of it and so I always end up snapping some pictures of subjects which I’ve already photographed before, simply because you never know if you’ll ever get to see them in such optimal conditions again. The light of the setting sun was splendidly warm, the sky deep blue – and a cyclist just happened to

2303, 2011

The Window

Joseph/ March 23, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

Sometimes, I take a picture just for the sake of the qualities that I like to see so much in a photo, but not necessarily for the subject itself. Such is this photo. Of course, there is a subject – and that is the window. However, it was not this that made me click the shutter, but two other things which I most cherish in a photograph: texture and mottled lighting. I simply love texture, be it on a wall or a piece of cloth. And mottled lighting simply fascinates me.

2203, 2011

A place of inspiration.

Joseph/ March 22, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

One of the nicest things about Oxford is that you keep running into places which provided the inspiration for so many classic stories. All you have to do is to go out for a walk and keep an eye out for the tiny little details which are simply amazing gems. Here is a photo which I took from St. Mary’s passage in Oxford – the place which provided inspiration for C.S. Lewis’ passageway which leads to Narnia. You can see two sculptures of a faun in the foreground, which ended up

2103, 2011

The hope for tomorrow.

Joseph/ March 21, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

As I look again at this picture which I took on Saturday, I can’t help but feel drawn again towards my own childhood memories – and one aspect of my childhood which I clearly remember, as I’m sure all of you do as well, is how everything used to look impressive and enormous. Then you grow up and everything around you seems to start shrinking in size and complexity – buildings become smaller and concepts easier to understand. When I snapped this photo, none of this went through my mind. All

2003, 2011

The High Street on the eve of Spring.

Joseph/ March 20, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

20th of March. One day until the official start of Spring. When it comes to the topic of weather and the seasons in the UK, I guess I would have been expected to submit some dull and grey picture of Oxford whilst I mumbled about how Spring is nowhere in sight. But lo and behold – the first signs of Spring are indeed here amongst us as we’ve had two splendidly sunny days. So enjoy the first Spring picture which goes up on the eve of the first day of Spring.

0503, 2011

A view to behold.

Joseph/ March 5, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 5 comments

Firstly, I have to apologize for the length of this post. I usually try to keep them short, but this time round I’m too excited, I have to admit. Today was a cold but sunny day. That’s pretty much how any person would have described it. But for someone who continuously lives with the nagging thought that somewhere there is something waiting to be photographed, such a description does not do justice to such a precious day. Today was a day with beautiful, pristine Winter light! I’ve waited to get this

0303, 2011

A new angle, nearly.

Joseph/ March 3, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

The sun finally came out this afternoon – and after finishing the work I wanted to get done, I headed out with my camera scouting for a new angle from which to photograph our college. I had not tried this one before. No, that’s actually not quite true. I had tried this angle before, but the light wasn’t exactly how I wanted it to be. For this picture, I wanted plain and somewhat subdued light on a clear day. At the time when I went out to snap this photo, there

2402, 2011

Dawkins and Grayling discuss.

Joseph/ February 24, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

So on Tuesday, I decided to miss a wonderful special Graduate dinner in Christ Church in order to attend a discussion between Richard Dawkins and Anthony C. Grayling about whether there can ever be evidence for the supernatural. The discussion was held in the beautiful Oxford Examination Schools as part of the Oxford Think Week – a week of high profile free public events on atheist, Humanist and secular themes organized by six separate societies (more information at http://www.thinkweek.co.uk). Hundreds of tickets were snapped within the first few minutes of them

2002, 2011

The Home of Astrophysics in Oxford.

Joseph/ February 20, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

This is the Denys Wilkinson Building – the place from where I work every day (unless I’m working from college). It goes without saying that architecturally it’s strikingly different than all the other old buildings in Oxford – and indeed, many are those who frown upon the very existence of this “hideous” building in an otherwise picturesque medieval university town. Case in point, when I was taking this picture, an old man who happened to be walking by stopped and remarked, “Surely you’re not taking a picture of THAT building! It’s

1402, 2011

Fiery skies.

Joseph/ February 14, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

Sometimes you look in old folders on your computer and come across pictures which you had taken and eventually completely forgotten about. And when that happens, you can’t help but ask yourself why you didn’t upload that picture before. Here is a picture from a couple of weeks ago which I think has enough merit to be uploaded. It reminds me to sift through some folders from last year; perhaps I’ll find some forgotten gems. This picture shows Christ Church’s Tom Tower silhouetted against a fiery sky.

1302, 2011

Rowing in February.

Joseph/ February 13, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

This is another snap from yesterday. It’s quite unusual to have such beautiful weather in February (case in point, the awful weather we have today!) and the sight of swift rowing boats on the river at sunset was quite exhilarating. I sincerely hope that all those of you who were around in Oxford yesterday managed to enjoy the fabulous weather! After all, who knows when we’ll next get a day like this?

0602, 2011

Of Books and Bookworms.

Joseph/ February 6, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

Haven’t had the time to do any photography this week, so I’m uploading a picture taken last week. Needless to say, the subject of this photo is certainly a leitmotif of the Oxford story. This picture shows the interior of Christ Church library and was snapped from outside whilst it was drizzling.

0202, 2011

Change?

Joseph/ February 2, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 1 comments

A friend of mine once told me a joke about our college. It goes like this. Question: How many Christ Church dons does it take to replace a light-bulb? Answer: Change?! And indeed, some scenes never change in Christ Church, which of course makes it all the more friendly to photograph. This evening was a very foggy one and the atmosphere was so eerie that I simply had to kindly ask a friend of mine to walk right in front of me as he came out of hall wearing his scholar’s

3101, 2011

The last sunset of the week.

Joseph/ January 31, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 4 comments

Today (well, actually yesterday since it’s half past one in the morning now) was the first day when I finally went out again, after a whole week of being bogged down by a cold. I met two nice friends of mine as I was walking out of college with my camera and decided to join them for a stroll in Christ Church meadow as the sun was setting down. It was a truly beautiful sunset – one of those when the sun is concealed behind clouds, but clouds of the most

2901, 2011

The corridors of learning.

Joseph/ January 29, 2011/ Uncategorized/ 0 comments

The first two pictures I posted were from back home, so I guess it was about time that I uploaded a picture taken at the place where I am right now. Sometimes when I’m walking around college I can’t help but let my imagination take hold of me. And so I sometimes find myself thinking about the generations upon generations of students and dons who walked the corridors of Christ Church, Oxford. Well, frankly, it does not require so much of a stretch of the imagination since on the whole the