CLUB TRIP TO NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY - 'WORLD'S MOST PHOTOGRAPHED'

SUNDAY 16TH OCTOBER 2005

On Sunday 16th October a happy band of MCC members met at the CGCC car park for a bus trip into central London.

The World’s Most Photographed exhibition and a Diane Arbus retrospective were in our sights.

Driven and navigated expertly by Bob Keene and Andy Page respectively, we found ourselves in a free parking space just outside Covent Garden. I thought ‘free parking’ only existed in Monopoly.

After a short walk we were at the National Portrait Gallery, just off Trafalgar Square.

The Worlds Most Photographed featured photographs of ten figures who lived their lives under the glare of popular and media attention. The ten were Victoria (Queen, not Spice), Gandhi, Hitler, Garbo, Hepburn, Dean J., Kennedy, Monroe, Presley and Ali. Some of the photography was not ‘approved’. It was truly fascinating.

On the first floor of the Gallery there was another superb exhibition of celebrity portraiture (mainly in the 50’s – 70’s), this time by just one photographer. This combined with images we had enjoyed elsewhere in the NPG, had left us all rather ‘pigged out’ on excellent photography. An earlier suggestion that we might give Diane Arbus a miss, quickly became reality.

A few of us predictably ended up in a fine London establishment sampling the cuisine and the ale. I’m afraid I plumped for the ham and eggs and then proceeded to accidentally add half a litre of malt vinegar to it.

Suitably refreshed/preserved, we emerged into bright, decent light for photography, and went our separate ways.

I remained in and around Covent Garden. Others went further afield.

What you see here is a few images I took around the old market, and at the side of the Royal Opera House (skateboarders), on a digital SLR.

What I am hoping is that in the next few weeks this very sentence will be deleted and other text/images will be added to the gallery and to the page itself (BY OTHERS WHO WENT ON THE TRIP!)

Thank you for looking. Michael

-- MikeKiely - 12 November 2005