How do you celebrate the 100th anniversary of one of one of Cambridge’s grandest dames? With an interview and a photoshoot at Caius, of course!

Last autumn, the team behind CAM, Cambridge’s alumni magazine, celebrated the publication of the 100th issue…by interviewing the magazine herself. It turns out that CAM Magazine has collected hundreds of anecdotes about the famous people she has met, the incredible research she has reported on and the fabulous Cambridge places she has enjoyed.

But having written the feature, there was a problem: just how do you take a photograph of a magazine-as-person? So when CAM’s Art Director Rob Flanagan suggested giving the personification of CAM the full photo shoot treatment the idea was embraced by Editor Mira Katbamna (History 1995). 

“I had no idea what it was going to look like, but it was clearly genius and we had do it,” Mira says. “Clare Monaghan at CUDAR had already come up with the brilliant idea of a profile – so when Rob suggested a real life CAM, it felt like a really exciting and a different way of celebrating the 100th issue.”

And naturally, Mira knew the perfect location for the shoot. “As a Caian, Caius is Cambridge for me, so I couldn’t think of anywhere more appropriate for the photoshoot. I called Maša (Director of Development, Maša Amatt) and she immediately got the idea,” Mira adds.

Rob sourced a mannequin and set about decorating it with CAM covers, using an acrylic gel. “It was satisfying to watch it all come together into a marvellous patchwork of covers,” Rob says. “But a weird transformation happened when the last piece was in place – the object started to feel like a person. ‘CAM' stood at the top of my staircase for a few days before the shoot and more than once I jumped at her looming presence in the shadows.”

And so, on a crisp and bright day last term, photographer Julian Anderson captured the CAMannequin around Caius’ Old Courts site, including on the roof of St Mary’s Court, and on the balcony of the Cockerell Building.

Julian’s striking imagery appears in the feature ‘If CAM could speak…’, published in the latest edition of CAM, and includes a roof-top shot which shows not just Caius, but Senate House and Old Schools, King’s College Chapel, Trinity Hall, Clare, and – if you squint – the University Library.

Further photography options were considered, with Rob posing the mannequin alongside tourists, residents, students, staff and academics in central Cambridge.

“Most people were confused at first, or amused at the sight of us awkwardly carrying various brightly coloured body parts around College,” Rob adds. “We certainly made a few people jump who were aimlessly walking along Senate House Passage! Several offers to ‘acquire’ her were made, by both tourists and College folk, but in the end we found some nice rooms for her in Old Schools.”

Mira, pictured, who featured in Caius’ own magazine, Once a Caian… in issue 19 (Michaelmas 2019), began editing CAM on issue 56 and thoroughly enjoys the role.

She adds: “The magazine is a gift to edit. There aren’t many jobs where you can say ‘I’m really interested in this – I’ll ask the world’s experts what they think’. It’s a real privilege.”

:: The feature ‘If CAM could speak…’ is published in the latest edition of CAM

:: See the gallery for some behind-the-scenes pictures