First of all, what does that prove? Does your friend intend to obtain a degree in a relevant field, such as astronomy, physics, cosmology, etc? Does he plan to obtain a graduate degree in that field? TheEngineer, iirc, has a graduate degree in engineering, right?- or was it physics...
I only attend a lowly community college. But that is only for fiscal reasons, and I am only attending through completion of my associate's; I am already accepted to a school with one of the most prestigious computer science programs in the country (at the University of Massachusetts' Amherst campus), and will likely attend graduate school there as well. Again, what does that prove? Perhaps if your friend was a tenured professor of astronomy or physics at the college you speak of (Oxford, I assume?), his words would carry some weight.
As far as photos- if I presented a photo to you, right now, of a flat Earth viewed from space, would you accept it as evidence? I think not. You would decry it as a fake, a hoax, a conspiracy, if you will. So why should I accept photos taken by an organization with vastly greater resources than I?