who I am and what this is

I'm Emma, and when I started this blog, I was studying for a BA in history, and then an MSt in archaeology from the University of Oxford. Now, two or so years later, I'm working in collections documentation in a local museum, which involves less time playing around with Carolingian coins and Anglo-Scandianvian metalwork than I had hoped, and more time attempting to chase up paperwork relating to crumbly old rocks. Oh well.


I created this blog when I realised I was amassing a large number of photos of museums and galleries - not so much their contents and the exhibitions they house, but the buildings themselves. I've found that some of the most amazing parts of the museum visits I've been on (in particular the fifty or so different museums that I've been lucky enough to visit since the start of 2013!) has been looking at the beautiful museum architecture, and wanted to share this with the world and get you to remember that in a museum, you should always look up - you never know what you might see. I also fear that it's going to occasionally lapse into a collection of ramblings only tangentially associated with museums, and for that I apologise in advance.

Photos are all my own unless otherwise cited, and up until April 2014 were mostly taken on an iPhone 5, with the exception of those taken on film, for which I use a lovely Nikon F60 that I inherited/commandeered from my dad. For my 21st I was lucky enough to be given a Nikon DSLR, so I hope that the quality of my photos will be improving exponentially from this point!

The title of my blog is taken from a post on Museum Diary that you can find here, about the importance of remembering to look up whenever you're in a museum. If not, you often miss out on the best parts! http://museumdiary.com/2013/06/12/looking-up/. Museum Diary is an absolutely great blog run by the lovely Jenni, who I got the chance to meet in the summer of 2013 when I interned in Berlin at the State Museums.

I also tumble at http://justplainemma.tumblr.com, and tweet as _emmatweets. You can find me in a more professional capacity here:  http://www.linkedin.com/pub/emma-harper/64/316/b43