Oxford

Our last visited location during our trip to the UK last month was Oxford. As you saw and read in previous entries, we remained in London the rest of the time, visiting Nunhead cemetery, followed by St James's park, the V&A and Trafalgar square, with its National Gallery. 

We'd learned from a friend we met with at the cemetery, that there was a Tolkien exhibit held at Oxford, and thus, after organizing, we travelled there on Friday, 12th of October, specifically to see this exhibit, but also to wander around and discover Oxford.

It was a dreary, cloudy and windy day, so we were very limited in our movements. 

First stop, coffee. Second, the exhibit, off course.

Sadly, photography was forbidden inside the exhibit, for copyright reasons. We enjoyed looking at all the various items, books, sketches and drawings ; some of Tolkien books translated into other luguages, book cover designs, and many other odd bits. The best piece was an animated map of Fellowship's movements, in front of which I remained a good 15 minutes.

After we left Weston library and this exhibit, we wandered in the vacinity, but not for long. Weather turned sourer by the minute ; the wind rose, tempratures were too chilliy for remaining there, and it was also lunch time. 


So, after a while, we found Franco Manca's pizzeria and ate wonderful vegan pizza, with roasted potatoes, sundried tomatoes and fresh basil, on sourdough, baked at 450°C ! YUM!

Once this wonderful meal was over, we braved the streets again, and I managed some cityscape photos.

We went back through Broad street, and I snapped Weston Library more fully. I edited in several ways, by reducing highlights and adding a tad more blue saturation for this sky had cleared a tad, and only for a short while. 

I thought it'd be a much more interesting photo in black & white, so I desaturated and further altered hightlight/shadows ratios. 

& the same building, shortly after, had fewer people, and I thought this was a good moment for a stopped moment to shoot.

We followed Catte street, from which I shot this, on new College Lane. I love the stillness of this group of students. 

Just across, there was this phone box. You won't see any in our city anymore, so I like that in the UK, you still can see quite a few of them around. 

 & I edited this by converting it with Gimp's filters > sepia, and used only a 75% application, thus the red appears quite faded, as if by age. I like this effect a lot, especially with the bike right next to it. 

A few views on Radcliff Sq.

This, I believe, was a library

Both the Square, and Cordington library on the back, which is on Catte street

On the other side, Brasenose street

&  I don't quite recall where this was, but in the same area, between Brasenose, the libraries and Catte street. I'll edit this part of the entry if I recall it better at any given point. 

This concludes my photoblog series UK1018 for our trip to the Uk in October 2018. You saw quite a few photos, and how I edited my photos, taken either with my phone Cubot X18 as in this entry, and other times, the point and shoot Kodak Z915. 

Both cameras were challenges, as I'm used to much heavier, my bridge, Fuji HS10. With my travel options, I had no real access to manual mode, only to automatic. The sky was often overcast, or downright cloudy, and some of the shots were very difficult to edit and render. 

All photos, as in this entry, required editing white balance either automatically, or usually manually, by changing with Gimp's curves tool, or any other shadow/hightlight, contrast/brightness, and sometimes exposure, saturation and either hue or color temprature were involved in the making of the final shots - but in no way did I significanlty alter, apart when said, as I wished to document the trip and various visits.