There is a long standing tradition for Oxford university students to celebrate the end of exams (aka trashing) by spraying champagne and throwing various food stuff on whichever friend has just finished their exams. I first came across this in the early 1990’s and in my archives I have a great series of pictures of an unsuspecting student as he is followed down Queen’s Lane by his friends with Tesco carrier bags full of food and little by little he is covered with all manner of things as he made his way to the Kings Arms pub for a celebratory drink. Back then the Kings Arms seemed to be the place for students to go after exiting the Examination Schools so it was fairly easy to make some great pictures but now things seem to be different and it’s not so easy to know where the trashing might take place.

I spent a few weeks hoping I would come across some trashing in my lunch hour photo walks into town but unfortunately I didn’t have much luck until this particular day when I came across this group of students waiting around the corner of Brasenose Lane for their friend to come along. It was perfect timing and I happened to have the perfect camera and lens for it. Everything happened so quickly that I only managed to make these five frames but I’m very pleased with how they turned out and that I managed to avoid getting covered in the food that was being thrown around.

[Tech info:] Pentax 67 with 55mm lens, loaded with Ilford Delta 400, processed in Ilford DD-X 1+4.

Getting trashed after exams