A photography smorgasbord

Today one of the members of our parents photography group organised a photography 'smorgasbord' day - a day of photography events that we could pick and chose to do as we wished. People came and went throughout the day but we were largely a group of about eight people.

We met at a café for an early light lunch before going on to see the Taylor Wessing Exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. I have already seen the exhibition and was not impressed, so this time I went with an open mind determined to see beyond the seemingly political choices of the judges where if you submit an image of a disadvantaged child from an African country you had a good chance of being selected for the exhibition - rather than being chosen on the standard of your image. I tried but no, I still came away with only liking a few images and not being at all moved by any of the others.

We then walked to Waterloo Station where we saw the Landscape Photographer of the Year Exhibition, which as always was inspiring and very good and it made me want to visit Scotland or the Lake District as soon as possible! Then a brisk walk in the cold air to the Tate Modern where we saw The Radical eye, a collection of photos owned by Sir Elton John. He has only been collecting these images since 1990 and he has an enormous collection by some noteworthy photographers like Man Ray, Dorothea Lange, Irving Penn and André Kertész to name a few. At this point I left the group and headed home, but they were going on for drinks and then a light supper.

It was a beautifully sunny but cold day, and at this time of year the sun sets just before 4pm. This was the sun setting as we walked to the Tate Modern, there was a vivid orange and pink sky over the Hungerford Bridge and you can see Whitehall in the background.

In other news Adam, who is currently in France,  competed in the university ski trials today where they select the top 6 skiers from a squad of about 40, who will then represent Cambridge University in the ski competition later this week against Oxford University. He made the cut and so is in the top team and will be awarded a half blue for that achievement.