I’ve been looking at photographs quite a bit recently. Barthes was right, I think – they do have a strange, magical quality to them inasmuch as they capture a fraction of a second for eternity. They make time stop. They ratify the past in a way that no other art form can, proving unambiguously that the past did indeed happen. They are causes of both joy and sorrow as they remind us simultaneously that, while the past may never come again, their existence links us to history and in a way provides hope for the future.

Today I went and got a frame and made a collage of my photos, mostly using ones from graduation, Newquay and the summer ball. I’m pretty pleased with the result. The stillness of these images gives them an eternal quality. They’re moments in time captured forever, an effect underlined, at least for me, by their framing. Barthes was indeed right, therefore, when he wrote that punctum can only be found in the still photo. These images prick me, both with pain, for I miss my friends, but also with happiness as the collage will serve to tie me to the past. As with the photo at home in the conservatory, and the ones Charlie gave me for my birthday, they commemorate the last three years. They remind me of my friends; they also tell me that I can do anything.