As I was already in central London on business I decided to spend Wednesday afternoon at the National Portrait Gallery, which I had briefly visited with my friend on Saturday.

As it has become my favourite museum and I have become a regular visitor there, I decided that it would be prudent to become a member. For £25 a year I can visit their special exhibitions for free (the current one is £8 entry), and get 10% off in their shop and restaurant, which is not bad at all. There are some extra perks which I can’t remember right now.

I visited the Face of Fashion exhibition, which was amazing. There were loads of pics of La Moss, as well as other celebrities such as Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Drew Barrymore, Sharon Stone and Kevin Federline (of all people!) but there were also some striking pics of non-celebs. The featured photographers are Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott, Corinne Day, Steven Klein, Paolo Roversi and Mario Sorrenti.

Madonna #1, 2006 by Steve Klein.

I’ll definitely go back to the exhibition before it closes at the end of May.

I also wandered around the main galleries. I discovered that they had removed my favourite portrait (one of Jessie Matthews by Dorothy Wilding) but I was able to view it on their computerised viewing galleries.

I’m intending to purchase Dorothy Wilding’s autobiography; she was an official royal photographer and also took some interesting non-royalty portraits like this one, called The Bat.

I’m getting really interesting in portraiture as a form of photography now. It’s one of my favourite kinds of photography alongside street and documentary styles. I’m personally not into macro, self-portraits or landscape photography.

My older brother Lee is a very talented photographer, and is very good at landscapes, macro and everything else. Whenever we meet up we show each other our latest pics and discuss general photographic paraphernalia. He works for Jessops (a photography retailer) so he knows loads about the latest cameras, photo developing, etc.

I’d like to visit the Victoria and Albert museum next. They are currently showing an exhibition of Kylie’s costumes, which should be interesting.

Written by PJ | Posted in Uncategorized

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