Summertime
The next week featured an additional sort of issue: my birthday. Showing a new sensitivity, my parents didn't throw me a party. Some of the relatives came over: Grandpa Mark and Aunt Amy, Grandma Alex and Grandpa Damian, and Uncle Tony and Aunt Ann, and they brought gifts and cards from other relatives. We all had dinner together, then coffee in the library while I opened my presents, followed by homemade cake and ice cream. I got some lovely upgraded luggage for London as well as deluxe upgraded camera bags for each of my cameras and their lenses and stuff, which were my favorite presents.
Things were going well in school; my history paper on the first Kree-Skrull invasion had been returned with an A+, I'd just handed in my English thesis comparing female Romantic poets Felicia Dorothea Browne, Anna Letitia Barbauld, Charlotte Turner Smith, Mary Robinson, and Joanna Baillie, although their lives were more interesting than their work. I was also finishing up my study of the Aztec pantheon for Comparative Religions. We could participate in a city-wide competition for photography students, and I'd selected three of my best pictures (assisted with input from my teacher), matted them, and saw them off with the works from other students in the photography classes. I didn't expect much, and there would be no individual critiques here, but I liked the idea of my work being seen by a broader audience. Finals were coming up, but I wasn't panicked over any subject, and I was feeling pretty good about my grasp of the subjects. Fingers crossed that I wasn't deluding myself.
We had a few weeks where everybody was engaged in study groups or ramming through a semester's worth of information, heads down, little conversation, but focused, not freaked, then finals week. Nothing on the tests was new to me, always a welcome sensation, and on the last day of school, we got our yearbooks, spending class periods recording messages and visuals for each other, then finally clearing out our lockers, making sure all materials were returned to teachers or the library.
I spent one glorious week sleeping in, working, and hanging out with my friends. Superhero reveal night was not mentioned by Rob, Rain, Arch, or me. We just ignored the caped and costumed elephant in the room. My other friends were also relaxing; they had family vacations to look forward to as well as work, but while summer in the city can be hot and unpleasant, we were still out of classes for a few months and there would more time for fun.
I packed lightly for London, and my parents and Deri accompanied me over, taking the suborbital. They got me settled in my room in the residence hall, met the monitor who would provide the adult supervision, and we went out and poked around the neighborhood some. There were a lot of eating options around, cafes, restaurants, and bakeries, other types of shops, and a nearby subway line (they called it the Tube, whatever) that had stops right by all six colleges in the university. The nearest one was a good ways away, though, about twenty minutes. I would have to factor in appropriate travel time. After lunch, Mom asked me yet again if I had everything I needed (to the best of my knowledge), reminded me about Grandma and Grandpa for emergencies, and, reluctantly, they left.
I unpacked quickly and flopped on my bed, where I lay for about five minutes, before hearing voices in the corridor. I got up and met other students. This floor was one of three reserved strictly for under eighteens, so we were all subject to the same restrictions regarding curfew. Here you could drink ale, beer, wine, and cider at sixteen, subject again to a bartender's determination of when enough's enough if you can't figure it out for yourself, and we repaired to an actual pub to get to know each other. I sipped hard cider. It was ok, I'd drink it again, but it wasn't going to form a significant portion of my diet. I was the only American in the bunch, joined by two Australians, but the rest were from all over Britain and Ireland. We all had different backstories, but we had one thing in common: excitement at ditching our families to take interesting classes on our own. It was a fairly large group, sixteen of us, but this was only about a fifth of the under 18s, let alone the students of age who were going to be taking classes. It seemed like the average tenure of our group was about two weeks; I would be here the longest, and there were several who were just here for a three-day course or a week. Some of us knew what we wanted to study in college all ready (I envied them) but the rest of us were, I suspect, hoping that these classes would provide inspiration and direction as well as knowledge and practical skills. We went out to play tourist a little, having dinner in a cafe, just enjoying being young, finding friends, and being independent in a major city. I'd brought my digital camera with me to school, and I immortalized the evening, emailing the good photos to the group later on. We just barely beat the eleven o'clock weekday curfew.
The next morning I got up, bolted down breakfast, and caught the line to my photojournalism class. I had my camera and other required materials with me, and allowed plenty of travel time and enough time to make sure I could find the classroom. There turned out to be twenty of us in class, with only one other under 18. This class was mostly lecture; the practice would be done outside of class since it was only a three-day class. Our professor was a former photojournalist, Returned; he'd been a war correspondent during the Vietnam War. We didn't have much in the way of wars currently, but there was still global tension aplenty, competing socioeconomic, religious, and political ideologies, the severe strain on resources (still) brought about by the world-altering Return, and violence did flare up. There were also dramatic events like the Olympics, other multi-national sporting events, cultural events, political happenings. There was a lot of opportunity for photojournalists. We would be working on not becoming better photographers, but learning how to tell a story with images.
"Work on your technique on your own time," our instructor told us. "Learn how to think like a photojournalist. I'll give you two assignments; you'll complete them, submit them before midnight in a folder that contains complete and accurate captions for each image as well as a reflection about the challenges and discoveries you faced in completing the assignment." Lecture that morning consisted of information on ethics, generally applicable laws (although these could vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction,) assignments, and what you needed in your camera bag. We learned the difference between spot news and general news, and how to cover the issues. The next day, we'd be talking about shooting portraits, sports, features, and illustration, so our first assignment was to hit the streets and do our best to find subjects for hypothetical stories.
I went out after class was dismissed, feeling dazed by the speed of the instruction and the quantity of material covered. Several of my classmates were going to lunch on campus and I joined that group; we talked about the information over our meals and we found nearby parks and recreation centers where we could shoot people doing athletic things; the rest of it we could find on our own. I made my way to Regent's Park and knew I'd hit the jackpot. There was a very heated rugby match going on. I went over to the sidelines during an injury timeout and asked if I could shoot the game for a bit for a class assignment, and nobody cared, so I paced the action on the sidelines, watching through my viewfinder for intense action or just individual moments, like the guy who elbowed another guy in the nose, a crushing tackle. I got some good shots, so I took off to Queen Mary's Garden for shots of the famous rose garden for a feature. The roses weren't in full bloom just yet, but there were roses everywhere and still beautiful. I also shot the Delphinium Border and the Mediterranean Borders.
Then I walked to the British Museum, where I used exterior shots for illustration for a fictional piece on neo-classical architecture. It was a long walk, although interesting and fun, and I was kind of pooped, so I went inside, inquired about the rules and regulations for photography in the museum, and skulked around until saw a very distinguished man in the Department of Greece and Rome, arguing with a younger man in front of the Elgin Marbles. Ugh, modern Greek. But I understood enough to know that they were complaining that the precious frieze from the Parthenon had yet to be repatriated. The younger man shook his head and left, and I approached the older man and asked him if I could take his portrait, explaining about my class project. He smiled slightly and gave me permission, and it only took a couple of minutes to get a couple striking images. I offered to share them, but he declined, and also declined to give his name. He took one more look at the marbles and shook his head. So I said, in as much modern Greek as I could, filling in with ancient Greek when I had to, that if Athena took a special interest, perhaps the British might reconsider their disputed ownership of the masterpiece. Wouldn't hurt to ask her priestess, anyway. It might be harder to refuse a goddess than a government. I smiled slightly and scuttled off, taking a break in the cafe, then took the subway back to the residence hall, where there was a meet-and-greet for all residents; apparently it was a weekly thing during the summer with so many people coming and going so often. I had enough time to caption my photographs, then went to the lounge, where there was pizza and drinks, and I caught up with some of the people I'd met the first night, then met some new people. There were more nations represented, and it seemed like we were all here for different classes. Then I had to go do the reading and write my reflections, fortunately, just a page long. I submitted my portfolio around ten, and went to bed early. I was tired from the time change.
The next morning in class, we listened to the promised lectures on portraiture, sports, illustrations, and features, and the professor finished with showing us good examples of each from the work we'd turned in. My portrait was featured in the discussion along with one of the more brutal action shots from the rugby game, and although he didn't single out students, he explained why they were successful. The next day would feature a lecture on photo editing, and we were to go forth and shoot a multiple-picture story.
Well, I was kind of stuck. Where do you go to find a story? I looked on the internet and took a bus to the Tower of London. Tourists flocked there, and the instructor didn't say that the photos had to tell an original story, or even one that was very good. On the ride over, I learned more about the Tower, and I was ready when I jumped off the bus. There was an "Armory in Action" experience at the White Tower, and as I bought my ticket, I heard some discussion behind me. I turned to find a family with a girl about Deri's age. I waited until they had bought their tickets before approaching them.
I introduced myself and showed my temporary student ID. "I'm taking a photojournalism class and my assignment today is to take a series of photos showing a story of some kind. I wondered if you'd let me photograph your family at some point in the event here?" I asked. "It's only for the purpose of this class and I'd be happy to email you copies of the photographs." The family, the Griffiths from Wales, discussed the matter briefly and consented, and I fell in with them as we started the activity. A warden started off with an informative explanation of weapons and combat skills using a combination of historic artifacts and multimedia before we went onto an archery range and were allowed to try the famous English longbows. Ok. Not as easy as it looked, and they were hard to fire, too. We learned about the types of arrows, and I photographed the Griffiths as they tried their hands at it and listened to the explanation of how Henry VII was dressed for battle. The warden showed us some of his suits of armor, so beautiful and finely made that it was almost impossible to imagine him actually using and damaging it. Then we learned how to fire a half-sized cannon and practiced slicing cabbages with swords according to directions from a Napoleonic-era manual. We got to fire muskets, too--a modern replica rather than antiques, of course, much safer. At the conclusion of the tour, I showed the family all the photographs I'd taken, asked if there were any they'd rather not be shown (they were fine with them, though) and they chose several images for me to forward to them, which I did on the spot. We parted ways then, and I felt pretty good; I had a shorter series of the girl hacking away at the cabbages, having a ball, and the family as they moved through the activities in general.
I spent the rest of the afternoon poking around, making sure to visit the Crown Jewels, now a permanent acquisition since the monarchy had been abolished. Deri would love it, so I stopped at the gift shop and got myself a book on the Tower in general and one on the jewels, getting Deri a pair of crystal hairpins while I was there. On the way out, I saw a model of a horse in medieval armor, very impressive, which I bought for dad. The horse had a yellow saddle blanket and was black, powerful looking, like one of Dad's favorite steeds. I had to hurry to meet my fellow students for dinner at the pub before we got down to studying. After a glass of beer (kind of yuck, but a learning experience) and the meal, we returned to the residence hall and I curated my photographs, captioning them properly, and submitting before doing the reading. It wasn't just about how to edit photographs, it also went over guidelines about what was appropriate to do and what was not. Very interesting.
We had another informative lecture, followed by a critique of several series; mine was not among them, but that was ok. I'd learned a lot, and the critique was enlightening. I wouldn't get a grade for the class, but it would be noted on my high school transcript, and I had specialized knowledge now. I had the afternoon free, so I did some touristy stuff. My class was over, so I had Thursday through Sunday to take it easy and explore, which I did with some of the other students who had finished short classes too. Several of my new friends left on Saturday, but other students arrived on Sunday; more people to meet.