Picture special: Richard Cave's top pics of the week's photography across the county

The boy who went to the effort of camouflaging his own head before even setting off for school was always going to take his drill practice pretty seriously. Five-year-old Ayaan Vivien marching determinedly with his Carswell School classmates at their camouflage day in aid of Armed Forces charity SSAFA. A magnificent front page pic by Ed Nix. OX68228

It’s all about the expressions. Great to see that, in addition to no doubt producing angelic orchestral tunes, Luke Hitchcock (11) and Toby Collier (10) find time for a bit of tomfoolery. A splendid shot of the Blackbird Leys String band by Cliff Hide. OX68296

My colleague and trusty picture desk assistant Neil Braggins is also known as Radar (around the office due to his ability to sort out picture-related problems, extracting images from documents and tracking things down on our occasionally somewhat temperamental archive system. On his way home on Wednesday night, our eagle-eyed ‘go to’ man spotted smoke at Didcot A Power Station and snapped this image which turned out to be a not inconsequential fire that had the emergency services still in attendance 16 hours later.

This image is very familiar to me, as it’s pretty much what I’m greeted with every time I ask my sons if they’ve washed their hands for tea – only joking boys! A super shot by Damian Halliwell of Luke Shirley at the appropriately named ‘Mud Day’ at Hill End Centre, Farmoor. I like the posing here, resulting in the most startling handbar moustache ever. OX68288

Some pictures make you say ‘wow’; some make you say ‘what the..!?’. This
one falls into the latter category. If you missed it first time around, on Saturday, children got to send their beloved cuddlies down a zip wire from the top of Wolvercote’s St Peter’s Church Tower. As inspired ideas go at summer fetes, this has to be right up there. The terrifying action was captured by David Fleming who insists that no bunnies were hurt in the making of this picture. OX6820

Bean there, done that... well I haven’t! I don’t even like holding a sticky can of coke on a hot day.
So credit to Sherry Knight for sitting in a bath of beans while more are poured on her head. Cliff Hide took various pics but I like this tight-cropped one of the stoic grin of the Cherwell School Year 10 leader raising funds for Oxfordshire Animal Sanctuary. OX68317
Some pictures make you say ‘wow’; some make you say ‘what the..!?’. This
one falls into the latter category. If you missed it first time around, on Saturday, children got to send their beloved cuddlies down a zip wire from the top of Wolvercote’s St Peter’s Church Tower. As inspired ideas go at summer fetes, this has to be right up there. The terrifying action was captured by David Fleming who insists that no bunnies were hurt in the making of this picture. OX6820

Ed Nix shot pictures of St Edward’s School’s Bugsy Malone production. I really
like the pose, the composition and the amount of space left above to include the groovy stage lighting. The subject is Spencer Gomes who plays Fat Sam, by the way. OX68284