of sun and moon

Revision is taking over my life, slowly but surely, but I've been making sure to enjoy the beautiful sunshine, even if it does mean sitting outside the Law Faculty (I'm not even a lawyer) on the grass with my books trying to revise.

Oh well... Only 3 and a bit weeks and they'll be done! And I can relax for summer and start topping up my tan in the glorious British sunshine, (almost an oxymoron isn't it?).

a room with a view

So, inspired by Lisette from Lisette Loves, I thought I'd show you my room at Uni. Our College rooms are all pretty standard... and uniform and quite difficult to make homely and because we have to bring everything back home after each term, then start all over again the next, I try to take as little as possible to make my room look nice. This term is exam term, however, and I haven't gone overboard with decorating - my pin board is dull and filled with 'DO REVISION' motivation notes. But... I'll show you some little things I have done to make it feel a bit better. I have a balcony, so that's good, with a gorgeous view of the gardens. Yay! Anyway, without further ado... Welcome to my humble abode.

man ray

During the holidays, my dad and I took our thrice yearly trip to a photography exhibition. During Christmas it was, of course, William Klein and Daido Moriyama, you can see my post here. Dad and I had been looking forward to the Man Ray exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery for months - always seeing posters on the tube, luring us in, only to go and buy tickets for £10 each... So of course, expectations were high.

I do love Man Ray, and for my GCSE Photography, I 'replicated' his 'Tears'. Not very well, I must add, but ever since that piece, I decided that Man Ray was an imaginative dude with a skill for photography, despite not knowing much of his work. 

Obviously mine's nowhere near as good as Man Ray's though my model is exceptionally beautz. Katerina's eyes (and eyelashes) are clearly superior to Man Ray's model's...

So, Man Ray is known for his appreciation and experimentation of expression of the female form. While I thought a lot of his photographs were extremely beautiful, I've been to many exhibitions before and Man Ray's photographs didn't stand out particularly to me at all.

Of course I was walking around the exhibition telling myself it was fabulous so as not to mar the image I have of the renowned photographer in my mind. I looked at each photograph closely, trying to work out the spectacular use of lighting etc (a trait I've picked up from my dad... it wastes a lot of time). 

In the end, I resolved myself to thinking that, a lot of the time, his early photographs in particular, he has made his name because of the people he has photographed rather than the quality and artistry of the images themselves. This said, I did think some of them were super - but I think this was perhaps because, when I looked at a photograph of a famous face I recognised, I was more happy that I recognised the face than anything else, thus complicating pure appreciation of the photograph with jubilation at having recognised a face. 

There were some photographs that I absolutely loved, however, especially the ones depicting Lee Miller. Here are some of the ones that I actually bought... (postcard versions of course). 

London to Paris Charity Bike Ride

My best friend, Rachael, who you've probably seen before, is setting off on the 19th June 2013, to cycle from London to Paris... Now that's pretty far. BUT she needs YOUR help, and yes, I mean YOU, to raise money. She's not cycling to Paris just for fun, but she's raising money for a worthwhile cause: Mind, the mental health charity.

This summer, we lost a dear friend to depression. Mind is a charity that provides support for people suffering with a mental health disorder. Charities like Mind save lives, and we should all give something back when we can. It is not right for people to suffer in silence. Mind helps break down the stigma surrounding mental health.

Rachael is cycling for Mind, in memory of our friend and she needs you to donate to make her cycle worthwhile.

Please, please donate anything you can. Every small donation adds up to something massive.

You can visit her blog here where she posts regular updates on her training, readying herself for the cycle! So you can keep an eye on how she's doing. If you're a twitter user, Zoe and Rachael have a twitter account as well, tweet tweet. 

Finally, a link to her donation page is below: 

please donate anything you can, we'll all love you forever

She's a wonderful woman, doing a wonderful thing in memory of a wonderful guy, to raise money for a wonderful charity. Now we just need your wonderful-ness!

Thank you!

belated birthday

March and April are rife with birthdays among my friends, and so I have two lots of celebrations documented in these photographs. I really want to go home already and spend time with these guys again, drinking in Spoons without a care in the world. My mind keeps wandering back to Easter and so you may get a string of blog-posts about the Easter holidays - escapism. happy birthday georgia, saffron and rachy. 

 

i love them all, and i miss them very very much

back again

So I'm back in Cambridge, for what may possibly be my worst term of University so far - dreaded exams. As an English student, there're no exams in first year... But it means that two years worth of exams in one year are not the one... and I'm going to see just what that's like in a few weeks.

For now, though, I am celebrating because I've handed in my second year dissertation and it was super sunny!