MARTIN BOND- TOWN AND GOWN PHOTOGRAPHS

Martin Bond’s new collection gives a fabulous, inventive new slant on Cambridge. It is a brilliant day- by -exciting-day vision of a photographer’s year. The book is crowded with surprises. Each picture presents the place in a never-before- imagined light. Sometimes literally. The flaming skies behind Jesus Green lock or the mysterious mistiness of a lone fen skater , catch your breath. Rowers, for Bond, become ethereal aquatic angels their oar-wings flap in the early morning ghostly river gloom. King’s College Chapel is upside down. The inside of OLEMS looks amazing - when does it ever get a look-in?

And there’s the quirkiness. A contented chubby cat peers over a cyclist's rucksack as he calmly speeds on, whilst a lonely piebald tabby stalks the cloister of Jesus College. Dogs become street-wise characters snapped as they contemplate their next move. Humour is everywhere. Endless punt shots are not for this artist/photographer - one image features three punt poles as the hapless crew try to manoeuvre through a too-narrow bridge - quietly hilarious. The characters are delightfully diverse. Academics out of the sixteenth century, settle in pubs to read the papers. A barber’s customer peers out nervously as he sits under a yellow and black Mind your Head notice. Open any page for a charming vignette or a sad mini drama- a young man head in hands despair, sits by the roadside as a friend consoles -and an insouciant passer- by just looks at his phone. It’s a day in the life of Cambridge.

I have rationed myself to January until April. This book is too pleasant to rush. It is in fact a real gift to anyone who lives here - or frankly anywhere - in it, our environment is subtly transformed. Bond brings out the comic and the cosmic, the beauty ( gorgeous girls bob up inexplicably) and the irony of the lives we lead alongside each other. Ignore the well meaning predictable prologues, ( in what way can a line up of Trinity big wigs be ‘supportive’?) the pictures are beyond just beautiful . Town and Gown adds to the gaiety of nations as well as the sheer fun of living in Cambridge Today.