ANNiE LEiBOViTZ at the NPG

I went to see the Annie Leibovitz exhibition at The National Portrait Gallery last week, just a few days before it was due to close.

There is no doubt in my mind that she is a tremendous and accomplished photographer, just a google image search of her name alone brings up more than 80,000 results, having been commissioned to work with iconic celebrities from Angelina Jolie to the Queen Mother throughout her professional career.


I was enthralled to see so much of her work in the Vanity Fair exhibition held at the NPG last year, so I was expecting more of the same this time around; magical fairytale-esque portraits of Hollywood's hottest, seemingly candid portraits of the bold and the beautiful.

What I was surprised to be more drawn in by, was the family portraits on display from her personal annals.

Incredibly delicate captures of her mother and father in softening sunlight on a boat somewhere, her beautiful, picture-perfect daughter and the relaxation of inimitable Susan Sontag.

If you've missed the exhibition on it's world tour, then you'll need to buy the book.

i HiT 100

I've been working on a portraiture project since July. I had in mind the idea of taking 500 photos of different faces, in more or less the same set-up, of people I know and people I don't. I thought it would give me the opportunity to practise photography and encourage me to take my camera out with me more often. This proved more difficult than I first thought...

So, a couple of months into the project, I shaved off 100 and decided to focus on the less-catchy '400 faces', which I had hoped would speed things up. It didn't really, but it's a work in progress.

Last month I trotted past the 100 mark, but still have a few hundred to go.