Honeycomb, sweet to the soul

I took these pictures of Rosa in Bella's kitchen, under the light streaming through the glass ceiling on a sunny Sunday afternoon, after we'd spent the weekend wandering around exhibitions, trying Swedish wine, and planning for the summer.

Narrow windows high up

As my exams came near I spent more and more time at home, looking out the window at the wet weather and feeling increasingly claustrophobic - alleviated only by brief trips to the library. I took both of these in moments of feeling idle - it feels slightly odd looking back at them now that my degree is finished for good. 

  

Drawing up their lines

Quentin Blake comes for dinner each year at my college in Cambridge as it turns out that he used to study English here too as an undergraduate back in the day. As he wandered through college he marvelled at how much taller the trees are now, but how familiar it all still looks. I took his portrait in a corner of the deserted college bar just as it was getting dark outside, before he had to dash off to give a talk at the Union. Below is a picture I snapped also of one of the prints he donated to us.

A curtain of blue

Aliya and I walked across the meadows that stretch out from the edges of Cambridge, dodging thistles, nettles and cows. After we discovered crossed paths a few months ago, and overlaps from years back, we realised strange similarities that culminated in both of our arrivals in Cambridge. It was great walking along the trail of the river before I took these pictures of her in the last bits of early evening sun, when the sky was hovering between resolute white with small moments of blue coming through. 

Fish in the waters below

On a cold, overcast day just after Christmas I got the train to Brighton, where I decided against venturing into the sea, but sat on the pebbles and ate a hot kipper sandwich while trying to skim stones across the foam.

I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink

We went on a field trip to the printing press with our editorial team, setting off at 1 in the morning to catch them working through the night to get all of the newspapers, magazines and comics out for the following morning. The space was immense: a huge warehouse full of vats of ink, huge rolls of paper, and rickety stairways. We saw the paper being rushed through vast machines and emerging as fully-formed publications, and watched the ink being applied to metal plates in cyan, magenta, yellow and black; I was amazed at how physical so much of the process still was, with any computers in sight looking as if they'd been there since the early 90s.

The city and the tower

A couple of weeks ago I went up to Edinburgh to visit my sister Isabel. We wandered around the criss-crossing streets, ate haggis for breakfast, climbed up to the view across the city - and I got a shock from just how close to the sea we were when I turned around suddenly - and drank enough whisky for me to run late and miss my journey back.

Though they had seen

Since last month Hot & Cool has been stocked in the Tate Modern, alongside some of the best journals and magazines currently being produced! I only just had a chance this weekend to make it to London and see it on the shelves for myself - if you're by the river one afternoon, go down, take a look and pick up a copy.

Times and seasons

The day after I had a tropical-themed party at the beginning of summer, Alice and I shot an accessories story together, using nail transfers, plastic hair clips and a charm necklace that Alice brought round. Nami came over to sort the makeup, and we took these pictures on my balcony in the incredibly bright sunlight. Here's a few of the pictures - two of these ended up as outtakes. See the whole story in the latest issue of H&C.

All the days of my life

At the beginning of September I went to Paris for a few days, to see everyone before the summer was up and we were all in Cambridge, Chicago, and all over the place again. It was brilliantly sunny after a month of non-stop grey skies in London, and I walked all round the steep streets of Montmatre that I'd never got the chance to look at properly before, as well as gathering by the canal as always. These pictures are a mixture from the entire summer, from afternoons in Portobello (the pink broccoli), Maciek's fridge door, and a few late nights in Cambridge too (the cygnets and Siobhan's ukelele) - and Victoria Park too, where I spotted Larry David on someone's pocket and had to stop them to take a photo.