Went to prison today – for the first (and hopefully) last time. I didn’t intend you understand. I just made a Saturday morning pilgrimage into Oxford to buy nice things for the weekend, like meat and cheese, and olives (I also needed a new photo cartridge for my printer from pc world). Now, I normally park in one of the side streets round the back of the station, and walk into keeping to this side of Botley Road, head straight on in down Hythe Bridge Street and up George Street to the centre. Today, I needed to get a some money out of Nationwide to pay off the credit card – Nationwide being on the other side of town, I crossed over Botley Road, and went up Park End and up past the castle – and that’s how I ended up in the prison…
Oxford Castle and Prison had an open day today to allow people in before tearing it apart to convert the old prison into a hotel (yes, true!). I wandered in to have a look, and thought, some of this would make great photographs … a few minutes later I realised that slung over my shoulder was my camera. I started shooting. And here are a couple of the pictures…
I’ve converted the first one to black and white, and I think I might have a play with some of the others to see if I can do anything art wise with them. If I get the right bit of a shot, I know (from a little bit of earlier playing) I can get some quite good affects with b&w and cranking up the contrast…
