More than matchstick men!

What a struggle to get a good blip picture today and I failed. Blizzard like conditions in Manchester and a fear of buggering my camera prevented me from taking too many.

The main event of the day was my trip to see the V&A Nadav Kander exhibition at the Lowry. He's a renowned portrait photographer based in London and his pics are meant to be amazing. This was definitely an exhibition for the masses as there were portraits of all of Take That, Cheryl Cole (who's portrait was surprisingly non-chav and she looked beautiful) and Eric Cantona amongst others. That is not to say the exhibition was not good.....it was. Kander seems to capture his subjects in a rather melancholic way, somehow focussing on the eyes even in quite complex images.

I loved the Christopher Lee image, with his face being amazingly lit, capturing every detail on his face, against a black background. Erin O'Connor lying supine in a pool of water, surrounded by wild dog roses and common British woodland plants was amazing, dark, but with somehow light.....I know what I mean. My favourite though was the rather theatrical portrait of Boy George posing as The Joker. He had a shaved head, but with tar like black paint running down to his forehead and with a bright red joker smile. I imagined that he had just sung "Do you really want to hurt me", the innermost sadness of his tortured life showing in his eyes. A few didn't quite work; I love Lily Allen but her portrait didn't convey her personality...the sad look doesn't suit her and maybe a "f**k you" one would have looked better.

Beforehand, I had spent a good hour walking round the permanent LS Lowry exhibition and thoroughly enjoyed that. From the completely naive 6th form art type pencil drawings, his industrial matchstick men......, through to a few beautiful Valette oils. Two resonated with me, firstly the one of just sea and sky and then the one of "Ann". I always wondered what all the fuss was about with Lowry but the exhibition demonstrates what an accomplished artist he really was. Well worth a visit!

I'm going backwards in my Blip, but the morning started with a bike turbo session.... I suffered! I have a long way to become fit. Off to the pub now to drown my sorrows for being slow!