LOCAL LIFE
STREET APPEAL Snapshots of a City After 13 years and 5,000 photographs, Martin Bond reflects on his daily portrait project, A Cambridge Diary, and why it’s time to move on to something new
WORDS BY PHOEBE HARPER
A lone cyclist makes his way film. One row of choirboys fight boredom on their smartphones while a skull looms overhead against the scenic backdrop of St John’s College Chapel. Three nuns in various degrees of good posture paddle along the Cam, as one’s attention is caught by a male rower mid-workout. These are some of the rare, fleeting moments captured by local photographer Martin Bond in his vast photo project, A Cambridge Diary , where he took a photograph of the city every day for the past 13 years to capture its evolving charm. The project began in 2010 when down Silver Street with a cloud of balloons strapped to his back like something out of a Pixar Martin, a ‘jobbing photographer’ who fell into the career by mere chance, was trying out a new camera lens in the old Jessops shop on Green Street. “Photography found me, rather than the other way round, and I’m extremely
Facebook page. The year soon passed – and although his following remained small, Martin was hooked not just by the creative challenge, but also by developing his photographic skills as he was forced to shoot only in portrait mode. “I decided I’d keep doing it until I got fed up,” he says. Gradually, the years went by and the following grew, reaching 23k followers on Instagram and a further 52k on X (formerly Twitter) at the time of writing.
grateful that it did,” he enthuses. At the time, the shop’s manager encouraged Martin to take the new lens for a spin on the street outside. There he noticed a signwriter busy at work, precariously perched on a ladder, balancing his paint in one hand and a brush in the other. “As I raised my camera to take his picture, the tin of paint fell to the floor all over his rucksack,” he recalls. “The look on his face was priceless and I began to wonder if there was anyone taking the trouble to record those going about their normal business in Cambridge outside of the college walls.” So Martin embarked on what was originally meant to be a 365-day project, sharing a photo each day on a dedicated
CHAPTERS NEW Ten years seemed a natural point of
closure, before Covid-19 struck and Martin knew it would be the wrong time to bring his series of photos – a consistent daily source of beauty, wonder and escapism Photography found me, rather than the other way round
24 JANUARY 2024 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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