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ET25.6 A linguist in Peru · The Downing Arts Podcast

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  Welcome to the Downing Arts Podcast.
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  Following last week's discussion about the film Paddington in Peru, my guest this
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  week is also in Peru. Thomas Davies will be talking about how his year abroad
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  has changed his approach to his photography in just a moment. And while we're on
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  the subject, don't forget the Alumni association photographic competition is open until June
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  15th. All Downing students are eligible to enter. And the theme this
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  year is what Downing special. So why not take a break from
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  the library, grab your phone or a camera and get snapping details
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  in the show notes this
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  week, all the way out in Peru, my guest is Thomas Davies, who's studying
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  modern and medieval languages at Downing. Welcome, Tom. Hey, nice to see you.
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  You're on your year abroad at the moment, aren't you? I am. I'm about five,
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  six, seven months into my year abroad, staying in Lima in per.
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  Having an amazing time. Wow. Now you and I have kept in touch a little
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  bit this year, but could you just explain to our listeners exactly what you've been
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  doing while you've been in Peru? Yeah, sure. So part of the MML
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  HML tripos in Cambridge has a mandatory
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  year abroad which you can choose to split into
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  two destinations. But in my case I chose to do the whole year in Lima
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  and I decided to study. So I've been doing a placement
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  in the university here in Lima, the Pontecino
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  Universidad Catolica del Peru, where I've been studying different subjects
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  not entirely relevant to my degree, some of them more so than others,
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  and then where I kind of also been trying to see as
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  much as possible of the country. So I've. Across the summer holiday,
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  we had like this long summer break from December all the way into the beginning
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  of March. And in that time I was able to see a fair bit,
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  visit a few cities and yeah, really make the most of being
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  in Peru because it's just been an amazing place. Wow. And was it weird having
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  sort of upside down seasons? A little bit. And, and I think as well,
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  what's been surreal is in Peru because you have so many different
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  ecosystems, what might feel like the height
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  of summer in one place in Lima, for example, then you go into the Andes
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  and suddenly I'm putting on waterproof, some wrapping up. And yeah,
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  that, that's been really strange. You get on a bus and one minute you're sweating,
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  the next minute you're, you know, covered in wind and rain and yeah,
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  that, that's been really strange. And having the summer holiday across Christmas as well.
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  Spending Christmas in summer was,
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  was a. An adjustment, but yeah, yeah. And you haven't been home at all?
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  I haven't, no. I've been here all the time. It's a. It's a long way.
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  And obviously I've been missing family and friends, but I think it
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  felt like a once. Well, it's, you know, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity
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  to be in. In Peru for a whole year, and I just wanted to make
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  the most of that. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Wow. Well,
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  do you study two languages for mml?
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  So in my case, my degree is history in Modern Languages,
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  so I only do Spanish because half of
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  my studies is with the history tripos and
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  I'd already studied Spanish for A level. So I came to
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  Peru with, you know, I'd say a fairly comfortable level
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  of Spanish, but that's, that's improved just through being here and being immersed.
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  And all of my classes are obviously taught through the medium of Spanish, which has
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  been another, you know, a challenge, but also a way of, of improving.
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  And it must be a lot of organization to, to sort out your year
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  abroad. I mean, did that take that much time last year? Yeah,
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  you know, it was a strange one. It felt a little bit stressful.
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  But I also, in my case, it was somewhat simpler
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  than some of my friends that have decided to split it across multiple countries.
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  That's like double. Right. So in my case, it wasn't so bad still,
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  you know, visas and confirming things with the university here
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  and, you know, there was a bit of organization and actually as well, once I
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  arrived Peru, oddly enough, they kind of. You arrive on a tourist
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  visa and then you have to convert that. So there was a whole rigmarole of
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  going to migrations and Interpol and getting various biometric
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  data checks and this, that and the other. I remember,
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  I think it was my second week. I'd been in Peru. I had a meeting
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  at Interpol to kind of begin the process of
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  converting my tourist visa into something more permanent. And I arrived
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  in this building and it was this rundown Interpol office and
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  they gave me this form and there was like a diagram of
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  my teeth and I didn't really understand what it was all about. And I was,
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  I was still kind of adjusting to the Spanish. And I was thinking, have I
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  got the right thing here? Are we in the right place? And it was like,
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  no, no, you have to go into that room and there's like a dental check.
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  And that. That felt like a really surreal, a really surreal kind of crash course
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  in Peruvian bureaucracy. But, yeah, no,
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  there's been a fair bit. But thankfully, now I'm settled,
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  I'm able to go about my daily life and I
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  don't run into too many problems with that. Yeah, brilliant. Well,
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  I'm sure there's lots of people who will be very pleased to see you when
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  you get back. And I know that one of your great passions
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  is photography, and I know when you
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  were Downing, your first couple of years, you produced some really amazing work.
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  So have you had much chance to sort of indulge yourself in that while you've
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  been in Peru? I have. It's been fantastic. It's been quite.
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  I don't know, it's been an opportunity to try out some new things photographically.
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  In Cambridge last year, I was mainly doing portraiture,
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  working with Varsity, the student newspaper,
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  and then some bits and bobs with the Hyon Gallery as well, in Downing,
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  and that was something I really enjoyed doing, but just
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  the practicalities and the logistics of bringing stuff basically from
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  the UK into Peru. I had to slim down everything, right. So I bought
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  this little film camera that can just fit in a pocket. And with that,
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  I've been trying to capture more, you know, streets,
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  landscapes, just. Just capturing my travels, really. And I think more
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  than anything else, I just wanted a tangible memory, you know, of.
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  Of the year abroad. And so I've got a folder here with all of the
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  negatives of the developed films and I'll be bringing that with me back to the
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  uk. And that'll be. Yeah, it'll be a nice memory. It will be a nice
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  memory. It's such a lovely thing to do. And I know over the. Well,
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  your summer break of Christmas, you did some pretty amazing.
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  Well, you went to some amazing places. Do you want to just tell us a
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  little bit about that? Sure, yeah. So I had, as I said,
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  I had about three months of Christmas. Christmas,
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  stroke, summer holiday. And,
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  yeah, in that time, I think I'd made the decision fairly early on that
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  instead of trying to, quote, unquote, do South America and
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  see lots of different countries, I was. I was more keen to, you know,
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  really see Peru. Right. Because that's. That's why I came.
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  So the first place I went to was the city of Arequipa, which is
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  in the south of Peru. And while
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  I was there, I got to hike through the canyon, the Canyon del
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  Colca, which is one of the. I think it's something like three times deeper than
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  the Grand Canyon of Nevada. It's like. It's a really huge canyon in Peru,
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  and I wanted to go predominantly to see the Condors,
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  because the Andean condors are this huge, amazing species
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  of vulture. Anyway, yeah, so that was amazing.
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  I spent a few days there. And what was also good is I've been traveling
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  everywhere on the bus. And I think one of the things I wasn't
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  really aware of before coming in my ignorance was how big Peru is.
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  Right. And so some of these bus journeys I'll be doing have been.
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  Well, I went to Cusco. That was, that was the last trip I did.
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  I went to Cusco, which is deeper into the Andes to the east of
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  Lima. It was a 30 hour bus ride. And to
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  get there, going all the way through the mountains and you kind of zigzags
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  and yeah, I had to take some, some travel sickness pills,
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  but that was also amazing. And while I was there, I saw Machu Picchu,
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  but as I said, that was the last thing I did. And I
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  kind of went there because I was sick of people asking me, oh, have you
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  gone to Machu Picchu? Have you go to Machu Picchu yet? Because it feels like,
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  you know, the destination in Peru. But actually some of, some of
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  my real highlights since I've been here have been, I don't know,
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  somewhat lesser known destinations. So I went to the city of Huaras,
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  which is in the north. It's known for the
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  snow peaks. There's really gorgeous,
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  gorgeous mountains. And lagoons, really crystal blue lagoons.
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  And that was actually where I've done some of my favorite photography while I've been
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  here, hiking around some of the lagoons,
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  seeing that. And then over Christmas I spent,
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  I was, I stayed with a Peruvian friend in his hometown called
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  Muruguay, which is, I mean, it's, it's a tiny little town in
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  the middle of the Andes. It's not really on the tourist track per
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  se, but I think that was an amazing opportunity to see a side of Peru
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  that I don't think I would necessarily have seen were it not been for having
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  made this friend. Right. And so that was, that was a
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  real opportunity. And beautiful. I was stunningly beautiful. And because we were over
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  there for Christmas, it was interesting because Perusa, you know, it's a Catholic
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  country, it's quite traditional, particularly in the, in the Andes. And so
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  spending Christmas time in this little village,
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  seeing their traditions and their dances and the masses and.
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  Yeah, that was amazing. I really won't forget that. Wow.
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  And you said that the photography you've done this year has been quite different from
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  what you've done in the past in Cambridge. Do you think having this experience will
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  affect what you do in the future when you come back to the
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  uk, Whether it's choosing to do a different type
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  of photography or whether it sort of will affect the way that you do the
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  portraits that you're talking about. I think that's definitely true. I think
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  more than anything else, it's been getting used to film.
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  Right. Because before in the uk, I'd never shot with film before. It was all
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  digital, relying quite heavily in my portraiture on external
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  lighting, on flashes, diffusion, things like that. And I
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  think the time I've spent just with my little camera has kind of shown
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  me the more trimmed down way of doing photography.
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  And that's something that I'll definitely try and incorporate in some of my portraits because
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  I think there's a value to using natural light shooting on
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  film, which is a more deliberate medium. And,
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  yeah, I'm keen to get back to portraits. I think I'm more.
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  I find it more rewarding than doing landscapes. Having said that,
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  I think on the technical side, I've definitely taken things from
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  this year that I will apply to my portraits later. Has that been a.
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  Has that been a real mindset shift? 100.
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  100%. Yeah. I would. Before, I would be taking hundreds,
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  if not thousands of photos on my digital camera. And the hit rate,
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  if you like, the percentage of those photos that were actually good, that were usable,
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  that I would be putting on social media or whatever will be really small.
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  Whereas with film, I found that because I'm much more
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  deliberate about taking these photos,
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  perversely, although I'm taking far fewer, I'm probably getting
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  better photos and getting more usable photos from that
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  than I would if I'd have been using a digital camera. And I know you've
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  submitted some of your photos to the Leaves anthology, but you don't know
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  which ones have got in. No, no, I'm excited to see.
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  I've. I sent them. This was about a month or so ago, I sent
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  them some photos from my travels. I think at that point I hadn't yet been
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  to Cusco, so the photos are predominantly of Arequipa
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  and Jura Grass. But, yeah, excited to see what the editors do
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  with them, how they. How they actually appear. It will
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  be a departure because I submitted last year as well, but that was all my
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  portrait work, so it will be interesting to see. It'll be my first
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  time seeing my landscapes in print, so I'm excited to see how
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  they turn out. Well, that'll be a treat for you when you get back here.
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  Yes. Back to college. And I know that yeah, we'll be very glad to have
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  you back and thank you so much for chatting today and see you soon.
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  This week in College Tonight in the Howard Theatre at 5:30,
• 13:01
  History of the Present will be screening. See the show Notes for details on
• 13:05
  where to get your ticket. And at 9:30pm The Chapel Choir sing
• 13:09
  the final choral Complin service of the year with beautiful music by William
• 13:13
  Bird and Lucy Walker, followed by port and hot chocolate. What better way to
• 13:17
  wind down at the end of a long day? On Sunday at 6pm there'll
• 13:21
  be a choral Eucharist in the chapel on the theme of the Ascension, including Finzi's
• 13:25
  classic anthem God is Gone. Up. Take a break. Choir is back on Monday at
• 13:29
  5 this week with music from Mamma Mia. Whether you're being a super trooper powering
• 13:34
  through exams or you're feeling like a dancing queen, come along and let off steam
• 13:37
  for half an hour. The next exhibition in the Hyung Gallery opens on Friday next
• 13:42
  week and will showcase the work of major British abstract artist Gillian Ayres.
• 13:46
  Tune in again next week to hear more. Thanks for listening.