Big World Picture: Oxford with my Iphone

It was the morning after a journey down from Stafford, Staffordshire to Guildford, Surrey to help a dear friend move house. I was sat in my car in a supermarket car park thinking to myself where shall I visit on my way back home. I took out my IPhone, went to maps and brought up where exactly I was and scaled out to get an idea where would be on my route home. Oxford was one the places and only an hour drive from where I was, so with breakfast eaten and a coffee drank, off I set for Oxford.

httpwww.ox.ac.uksitesfilesoxfordstylesow_large_featurepublicfieldfield_image_mainCity-of-Oxford.jpgitok=HDykMCH1

Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire and is set in South East England. Oxford is famed for its university and more recently form the “His darkmaterials” series of books by Phillip Pullman. The poet Matthew Arnold coined the term “City of dreaming spires”. This is a very good term as Oxford contains all manor English architectural styles since the times of the Saxons and includes the famous Radcliffe Camera. Don’t be fooled into thinking it is in fact a camera though, the word camera comes from the Latin for room.

The origin for the city’s name may be held in its heraldic shield. The elements on the shield of Oxford city first appeared in the 14^th century and suggest that it could be from a ford for crossing Oxen across the River Thames, but the “Ox” name could also come from a variant the old Celtic word that means water.

Some of the possible earliest photos taken in Oxford are by William Henry fox Talbot in the 1840’s. Talbot made a great deal of historically important photographs of Oxford, and across Britain.

On the left is one of the photographs made by Talbot and to the right is the same monument that I captured using my IPhone.

"Fox Talbot reported his 'art of photogenic drawing' to the Royal Society. His process based the prints on paper that had been made light sensitive, rather than bitumen or copper-paper.Fox Talbot went on to develop the three primary elements of photography: developing, fixing, and printing. Although simply exposing photographic paper to the light produced an image, it required extremely long exposure times. By accident, he discovered that there was an image after a very short exposure. Although he could not see it, he found he could chemically develop it into a useful negative. The image on this negative was then fixed with a chemical solution. This removed the light-sensitive silver and enabled the picture to be viewed in bright light. With the negative image, Fox Talbot realised he could repeat the process of printing from the negative. Consequently, his process could make any number of positive prints, unlike the Daguerreotypes. He called this the 'Calotype' and patented the process in 1841. The following year was rewarded with a medal from the Royal Society for his work." http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/fox_talbot_william_henry.shtml

Another photographer that Oxford is famed for is that of Henry Taunt, born 1842, St Ebbe’s in Oxford. Henry had a series of photographic businesses around Oxford from 1868-1906 after wich he moved his work to his home on Cowley road.

Henry took photos around Oxford and the surrounding areas of Oxfordshire and produced a a pocket guide of the Thames River, which was a first of its kind that was to be illustrated using photographs rather than artists impressions. Henry used the wet Collodion process, invented by Frederick Scott Archer, to capture his images.

Henry Taunt on his floating studio near Oxford, Oxfordshire, 1895

Henry would set up his camera (tripod and dark tent), coat his glass with chemicals to sensitize them. Then straight away make a 2 or 3 second exposure then develop and fix his plates and wash them off after in the river. This is a fantastically difficult thing to do and being the 1860’s, an amazing show of skill. .

Oxford High Street c1896, photograph by Henry Taunt

From the use of wet plates to make the above photograph, to the use of the most modern of capturing using my IPhone. They may be technologies apart, but I like to think they have the same feel about them.

My IPhone photograph of Main Street.

I found Oxford to be crammed full of heritage, to the point I had to go back to my car to recharge my phone and, whilst it was on charge, I set off back on the streets hunting and exploring for new scenes to capture and that I could return to once my phone was fully charged. The museums are amazing and full of wonders. There are many, many layers to Oxford and it’s a joy to just wonder, snapping away. I’m very sure that there are many places I did not discover and hope to on further trips to Oxford. Each turn of a corner is like stepping into another time or world. Oxford is I place of wonders and a place the makes you wonder. You will never stop thinking “what’s around that corner?”.

So after this brief history lesson I feel I should really leave you with a selection of the photographs that I took using my IPhone 5s. I hope you enjoy them and I have captured the feel my journey around Oxford. Please feel free to leave any comments at the bottom of this post. thanks Paul.