Town and Gown

I'm impressed that the triennial 'Photo Oxford' Festival is happening this year, despite everything. The theme is Women & Photography - Ways Of Seeing And Being Seen.

Today I saw two very small outdoor exhibitions, one of portraits of women at The Gatehouse - a centre for homeless people - and another of 19th century botanic cyanotypes by Anna Atkins (extra). I also went to The Weston Library's indoor exhibition of recently acquired photographs by Helen Muspratt (1907–2001). She was especially interested in the 'shape and angle' of faces and earned her living by taking portraits in her studio in Cornmarket Street, but I was much more interested in the way she used solarisation (the link above is one of hers). 

It felt quite odd cycling around to exhibitions and taking photos in streets full of people, as if everything was normal.