Disposable Camera 1: Everyday Cambridge

I tried to capture some of my daily life as a postgraduate student in Cambridge (2018–2019) through a disposable camera, just so that later in the future I can look back at this time through a particularly nostalgic lens. Here’s me in that future looking back and cataloguing some of my routines.

First, a couple shots from my neighborhood.

This is just the view from my bathroom window. You may notice a football field in the back. Occasionally football players would knock on our door asking if a wayward football had ended up in our backyard or not.

And this was taken from my bedroom, which was on the front side of the house. Here we see a lot of identical very British looking houses.

The entrance to the road where my house resides.

Just a mailbox. I did actually send mail once or twice through this box.

I miss my bicycle! It’s parked at the side of the house where it usually resides.

Now venturing outside of the neighborhood.

The train station at Cambridge has a very old-timey feel to it (at the exterior, the inside is more modern). You may notice at the top of the building they have the crests of all the Cambridge colleges, which really goes to show that the university is the heart of the town.

Market Square. It’s been the town market for hundreds of years, and I like knowing that generations before me have also shopped for their next meal or a souvenir t-shirt at the same place.

As for the place where I did most of my work at Cambridge, that would of course be the Department of Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology. It’s located at the West Cambridge site, where a lot of the newer buildings for science/engineering departments are located, so it is quite new and modern. Every Wednesday, there was always a food truck day in front of the Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy next door, and that’s where you’d see some of the world’s most brilliant scientific minds line up for half an hour for a plate of curry.

I took some classes at the Department of Engineering as well, which was located at an old site on Trumpington Street, closer to the center of town. The bike ride from West Cambridge to Engineering had some neat views along the way as well. My usual route took me across bridges where I had to ring my bike bell very loudly to scatter the tourists thoughtlessly standing in the middle of the street, and across iconic Cambridge establishments like the Fitzwilliam Museum or the bakery Fitzbillies.

One of the places you can get your Harry Potter style robes for those fancy dinners in Cambridge colleges.

Oops caught a traffic light in the corner.

I used to cycle past these pretty buildings everyday…

That’s it from me. I think these shots are quite representative of what a day in my life in Cambridge looked like. Going from home to the department then to the city center and back, all by bike or on foot. It was a picturesque time.