Between 1968 and 1978, Paddy Summerfield photographed Oxford students in the summer terms. Though he found his subjects beside the rivers and on sunlit college lawns, Summerfield's images primarily express the insecurities and pain of youth. Solitary figures represent his own isolation, an experience that many will recognise. Rituals are played out, frivolity and romance give way to revision and exams, then celebrations that collapse into debauchery, and regret. The students depart and are replaced; only the stones remain.
