British photographer, Paddy Summerfield Photographed the Oxford students during the summer times in the 1970s. Though he found his subjects besides the rivers and on sunlit college lawns, Summerfield’s images primarily express the insecurities and pain of youth. His psychological approach is driven by the tension between the yearning for love, and sexual anxiety. Solitary figures represent his own isolation, an experience that many will recognize.
I was young and unsure and found a way to show this. I felt like an outsider, and lonely, that there was always something going on, parties and drinking, but elsewhere. Often, I sensed a loneliness in the students I photographed. We were all lonely together.