St Andrews Through Three Lenses

If nothing, St Andrews is picturesque. On my first visit — over two years ago now — I remember feeling that giddiness, that sense a photographer gets when they arrive somewhere that is this photogenic. I allotted myself three 35mm film rolls for that four-day trip, and those 108 shots were all but gone before I could load my bags back onto the airport shuttle. Photographer or not, I am sure all of you share a similar awe of St Andrews’ rising cliffs, medieval ruins, and narrow wynds and closes. Come September a year later, now a full-time student and Deputy Photographer for The Saint, tasked with my first photo assignment, I met an uncomfortable truth: I had already seen and photographed everything in St Andrews. Shocking, I know, but St Andrew’s three streets and modest residential neighborhood don’t make for the same labyrinth of photographic discovery I took for granted in my mid-sized home city. Within my first month, the infamous “St Andrews bubble” seemed to have claimed another victim. Nonetheless, I’m now entering my second year and find myself as active and creative as ever. To spare you all the sinking dismay I felt as a Fresher, I will share three tips that helped me find variety in St Andrews and escape the monotony that comes inherent to small towns like the one you have chosen as your new home.

St Andrews’ beauty (and curse) is its relentless constancy. Minus a few shops here and there, St Andrews’ charm has faced few updates since Rectors Andrew Carnegie and Rudyard Kipling spent their three-year terms holed up in the town’s multitudinous pubs. What does one photograph, let alone ‘discover’  in the town that never changes? My answer: the people. St Andrews is small, but the university isn’t; if you make an effort, you can find a scene and group for each night of the week. It is a common St Andrews fact that, by the end of your third or fourth year, you will know every student in St Andrews by one or fewer degrees of separation. Remember that St Andrews cycles through 3,000 students with each new class — I challenge you to try meeting all of them. Furthermore, our especially international student body more than makes up for the social dynamism you might feel the town lacks. Add the half million golfers and tourists that float through St Andrews every year, and you will never be denied an interesting crop of social opportunity and, dare I say, entertainment. I have made a meager journalistic career off people-watching and can affirm that St Andrews bears no shortage of characters.

To my next point, socially, St Andrews is an anomaly. Beyond its sundry personalities, BNOCs, and cliques, the town is simply and extraordinarily active. Let the Instagram photos of @haus.uk be my proof that students here do go out. In fact, find any society’s social media and take a short scroll; whatever your niche, scene, or passion, St Andrews has a lively club for you. If you do nothing else during Freshers Week, go to the Pavilion for Freshers Fayre and scribble your name on the emailing list of every society and club you have any remote interest in. Between the pub-quizzes, talks, and Sinners afters, you’ll have trouble finding the time to study. Having had the opportunity to photograph a smattering of these student clubs, I can confidently say there are plenty of fish in the sea, and each is a different color. Even the social free agents — those who might find themselves “club unaffiliated” by the end of Freshers Week — will find their crushes and compatriots in the Student Union, 601, Vic, or choice of pub. The pub, you will learn, is St Andrews’ ‘third place’. In conjunction with the Market Street Pret or Costa, Aikmans, Molly Malones, and The Central, to name a few, lie at the heart of St Andrews’ student community and social life; these are the places you will find all your familiar (and unfamiliar) faces.

Lastly, and perhaps controversially, the weather — to avoid suggesting that I possess any real knowledge of studying light, like Van Gogh or Monet, I will stop at saying this: in revisiting and revisiting St Andrews’ photographic offerings, I have found most inspiration in this town’s variable weather and environment. Volatile, harsh, oppressive, bleak, grim, or whichever other words you might use to describe St Andrews’ climate, variety is the spice of life, and the weather here undoubtedly keeps life interesting. Whether it be the 3pm December sunset, or the 6am August sunrise, St Andrews will keep you on your (wet) toes. Toss in a menu of rain, hail, snow, wind, and sun on a few hours’ forecast, and you will rue the Swede who said, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothes”. Still, the weather here produces a kind of camaraderie and forces people together, either on the lawn for a summer garden party or inside the pub or café to resuscitate a few frozen fingers. St Andrews’ fickle climate shifts and reshapes the town hourly, and perpetually sheds new light, literally and figuratively, on a place you thought you had finally conquered.

For many of you, my advice might seem irrelevant or unrelatable; settling in St Andrews will present to each of you your own unique challenges and discoveries. As alluded to earlier, the beauty of this town is in its sheer diversity of backgrounds and experiences, and it is naïve to expect any of your Freshers experiences to mirror my own. Still, if there is any moral to the advice I have to give, it is that it will take a new frame and a fresh set of eyes to learn to live and love in this new town you call home.

Photographs by Alden Arnold