The magazine of the photo-essay
Oct back 2016 issue
by Paddy Summerfield
“A free, really high quality photo-essay magazine. Fabulous!”
Stephen Fry. British actor, writer and film & documentary maker
“I was young and uncertain and found a way to show this. These
photographs reflect my inner world, as well as being a document of
Oxford student life. I felt like an outsider, and lonely, that there was always
something going on, parties and drinking, but elsewhere. Often, I sensed
a loneliness in the students I photographed. We were all lonely together.
“When you are young, you are trying to find your feet and I guess this
was also true for the students I was photographing, but the troubles of
youth are rarely the troubles of later life. I often wonder where these
people are now, and what became of them....” Paddy Summerfield
In The Oxford Pictures 1968 – 1978 Summerfield challenges any
sentimental preconceptions of undergraduates in idyllic settings. The
central focus is not on the known architectural splendours, but on youth,
caught in the transient summer seasons, experiencing heartbreak and
self-discovery. Summerfield shows them against the backdrop of this city
of medieval stone, capturing melancholy and self-doubt. He started this
work when he was twenty and in 1976 Sir Nicholas Serota invited him to exhibit the essay at The Museum of Modern
Art, Oxford.
