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Sunday, June 06, 2010

Today

A visit to the excellent Irving Penn Portraits exhibition at the National Portraits Gallery (last day). Irving Penn used a really basic studio set up. Shot in black and white, naturally. He used natural light through the window and a bank of tungsten bulbs. For many portraits used a big piece of carpet as a prop, which the subject would either sit on, or he would drape over say a table and the subject would sit/ lean on that. He would also put the subject between two theatre flats forming a "V".

We followed this with an equally entertaining meander through the so-called "Democracy Village" set up in Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament. Anyone familiar with this area will know that the inverted commas should really be around "Parliament Square", because it has been, hitherto, a wasteland surrounded by a deeply unattractive and polluted one way traffic roundabout. A square only in the sense if crudely forms a square shape. It's still polluted and awful, but at least there is more singing.

The hippies, as irritating and pious as they are, are keeping the place in good nick and have planted a pretty herb garden in the middle. So, I say hooray for them, hooray for the pretty herb garden, hooray for the homeless chap in full military kit who was agin them but kind of enjoyed it all. I don't agree with anything they have to say, but I appreciate they are having a bit of fun saying it.