Swinging Sixties

Visited the Beatles to Bowie photographic exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in central London last weekend. The exhibition covers the music scene in London during the years 1960 to 1969 aka the "Swinging Sixties" .  Given the years covered by the pictures, I was a little surprised to find a mixed audience attending - at least mixed age wise - I was expecting to see mostly people who have some claim to have been around at the time, and not so many younger people who obviously weren't.
The term "Swinging Sixties" and photography brings to mind Bailey, Donovan and Duffy, and it was good to see all these 3 photographers represented - although I could only find 1 from Mr. Duffy (see previous post wrt TV Documentary) which was of the Shadows with fashion model Ros Watkins.You've probably seen many of Bailey's and Donovan's work over the years - I have - especially of young looking Beatles and Rolling Stones as they were starting out. One photo I hadn't seen before - but liked very much - was a black and white low key portrait (taken in a studio?) of the Moody Blues.
The exhibition also contained much memorabilia for the period eg LP and EP covers, sheet music and also some of the music press of the time. Interesting to see the exhibition photograph and then how it was used on an album cover or in the press, eg the 1961 McBean colour photo of the Shadows.  Speaking of album covers, many of the albums (LP's ?) from the earlier years of that decade were in mono (it was stated clearly on the cover), stereo only became standard later. Also whilst colour photography was available throughout  the decade  - as just mentioned - the photos from the earlier years were in black and white, with colour dominating the later years.
I wonder what the younger people who visited this exhibition would have thought about things then - music on vinyl records (in mono) - not downloadable MP3 .... no video's ......
Also managed to catch the Turner and the Masters exhibition at the Tate Britain. No prizes for guessing which exhibition I preferred.

TV Documentary

Interesting documentary on BBC4 last night - "The Man Who Shot the 60s" - about Brian Duffy. Duffy was one of several photographers who captured swinging sixties London on film, before quitting photography in the late 1970s. Probably for this reason I'd not heard the name before now, but have seen his work without realising who took the pictures, eg the cover for the Bowie album "Aladdin Sane". Some of the photographs shown are iconic for the period and place. Shame that he burnt many of his originals - what where shown (on TV) look great. There was an exhibition of the work in London last year - pity I only heard about it last night, so I've missed seeing it. Hopefully another gallery will pick it up so I can get to it.

Looking at the TV schedules over this week, the documentary is being repeated several times on BBC4 over the next few days. Perhaps tou can catch it then.

London New Year Parade

Into Central London on New Year's Day for the annual New Year's Day Parade, now in its 24th Year. It's become something of a tradition for me to go in and photograph the parade, with its colour,  marching bands, cheerleaders and multi-national performers. It can be, on occasion a difficult event to attend,  given it begins at noon on Jan 1st, if the previous evening/night has ended late .....

 

This year's parade reversed the usual route of previous years, beginning in BerkleyStreet/Piccadilly and ending in Parliament Square. I like to get to the beginning before its starts and photograph the participants as they're setting up or starting off. I've tried in other years to get pictures of the parade as it winds its way along the streets - eg in Whitehall - but it can be difficult, with the crowds of spectators getting in the way.

It can be bitterly cold - like this year - can't be much fun for the people who go off last - it was about 13:30ish by the time they set off on this occasion which meant about an hour and a half (or more, depending on arrival) hanging around Berkeley Square. Wonder if they prefer rain ?

It may have been cold, but the winter sun was shining. Not that it was quality light, very harsh and contrasty, at a low angle, dark enough at street level, had to be careful with burnt out skies in backgounds....Still, managed to take 1 or 2 photos.