Inspiring Afternoon

Out and about with my camera this afternoon. Heading for the National Museum on Chambers Street I noticed a poster advertising an exhibition at the Talbot Rice gallery with a John Duncan painting. As a fan of Duncan's work - we had a copy of arguably his most famous painting, Saint Bride up on our living room wall) I decided to go in for a look. I realised I hadn't been into the Georgian room before, which is where the Duncan paintings were on display as part of an exhibition on the Celtic revival in Scotland in the early twentieth century. Well worth a visit to see some of the other Duncan works, including a couple of sketches for the murals that are in Ramsay Gardens. I remember visiting them in situ one Doors Open Day when the building was being renovated. Also there is another of Duncan's big paintings, Riders of the Sidhe, presumably on loan from the McManus in Dundee. And in the larger space there was an interesting exhibition about false memories. I won't say too much about it so if you are interested you can see for yourself. And between the two larger exhibitions a fascinating little exhibition by David Rushton including two amazingly detailed 1/24 scale models.
After the Talbot Rice, I went next door to the Museum and wandered around with my camera for a bit. There seemed to be a group of people busy sketching different aspects of the place - you can see a few of them towards the top of this picture of the main hall. Such a fabulous space and I was spoiled for choice over what to blip, but in the end went with this because I liked the people moving about.
And then after that I walked across town to the Portrait Gallery to see the Taylor Wessing competition winners exhibition. Having entered myself, without any success, I was interested to see what images made the selection as well as the few actual winners that I had already seen online. I must admit several of them made me think, meh. And quite a few more I thought, 'surely I can take something like that', which I choose to find inspiring rather than disheartening. There was one portrait up there from my first college tutor, who taught us on the NQ at Stevenson, and it was also interesting to see a portrait of Charlie Brooker up on the wall as I enjoyed photographing him myself a couple of years ago at the TV Festival. An animated sort of face to photograph. Anyway, I came away from the exhibition inspired and determined to take more portraits. I need to find people to arrange portrait sessions with - try and find more artists of all sorts to restart that project, return to my Homecoming theme, five years on, and maybe start a few other series. There is one I'd like to get going of people, like me, who are over fifty. I'll need to start asking around!