London Portraits ..

Busy day in London yesterday, shooting PR portraits before the inauguration of a new firm of financial advisors. As luck would have it they were all deep in a meeting by mid-afternoon, giving me some time to wander over to the William Eggleston 'Portraits' exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. That's a lot of portraits for one day ..

Couple of grumbles, if I may. Virgin Trains' coffee machine was broken on the train down. No coffee! Can you imagine? Then, on the way back, the 'tilting' bit of their tilting Pendolino trains broke too, meaning we couldn't do top speed and ran late. No tilt! Can you imagine? Buck up, Virgin ..

So now, a day of editing before two more PR shoots tomorrow. This time they're in Manchester. No coffee or tilting required .. 

Darn Sarf ..

Off to London today for a corporate PR shoot at a firm of solicitors. According to the brief I'm to photograph every member of staff as they gather for a meeting at their new offices. The meeting starts at 2.30 and they're arriving for their photos at ... 2pm!! Sounds a bit like buses. You wait all day for one, and 15 turn up at the same time ..

Which brings me nicely to today's photograph. A long row of London buses, lined up in front of a hotel in .. Sri Lanka! I was over in Colombo to cover the Viraj Mendez story - and if you can't remember him then don't worry, nobody else can, either! Anyway, I came out of the hotel one morning to find all these iconic red double-deckers lined up on the green. It was one of the most gob-smacking double-takes I've ever done. Apparently, they'd been shipped over to join the ranks of public transport in Sri Lanka. I just had to take a photo. Aldgate East please, guvnor ..

The tears of women ..

I popped down to London to see a band over the weekend, and got to the Lee Miller exhibition whilst I was there. She was a woman photographer in the proverbial 'man's world' - covering the Second World War and beyond - so it was rather ironic that my progress down Oxford Street was halted somewhat when I had to stop to let this women's rights rally pass. I felt the word 'Gap' was rather well placed..

Anyway, the band were great and the exhibition was worth seeing, so I headed home for Mother's Day only for both our Mums to be too poorly to see us! Oh, dear! Get well soon, Mums! I did get some good news though, as I'd printed a portrait of two youngsters I'd shot in the studio which was given as a gift on Mother's Day. Apparently it caused "happy tears" .. the only kind of tears a lady should have!..