I took these two photographs (panoramas on my iPhone) barely thirty yards from one another, and yet the clamour of one and the peace of the other are like scenes from different worlds. The first is looking from the gate of King’s College, Cambridge onto the street and the second photo is looking at King’s College Chapel and surrounding buildings from within the college grounds. Click the photos to see bigger versions.

They are players from the open-air Shakespeare Festival in Cambridge and they were on their way somewhere when I bumped into them. I am usually too slow to make the decision to get out my camera, wondering whether I really want to take the shot. Not here though. I grabbed the camera and took a shot as I approached them and then asked whether they would pose. This is the second shot I took. I knelt to take the third shot so that I would have a better perspective, but this shot turned out to be the most interesting to me, with the expanse of pavement in front of the players. Productions run for eight weeks of the Festival and productions are performed in full period costume with live Elizabethan music.

Standing on the bridge, watching the punts glide along, it’s noticeable that not everyone has a face of rapture at the scene.