Cecil Beaton portraits and my trip to the POOL.

Ok... so I am finally completely up and running with my blog and I have started to prepare myself for the stressful year ahead! for the past couple of months I have spent my time working and I have also been on a couple of holidays, spending time with the girls in Aiya Napa and then visiting spain with my family. Now I'm home i thought it was time to visit some exhibitions and re-ignite my creativity.

On TUESDAY 18TH AUGUST I went to Liverpool (the POOL) with Jemma, Gemma and Anna.

A range of Cecil Beaton portraits were being displayed at the Walker Art Gallery, at first I was going to Liverpool to see my friends and just collect information in preparation for my journal in the upcoming year, I liked Cecil Beaton's work and I knew I would like the photographs but I wasn't expecting to take as much interest in the images as i did. what interested me was that Beaton didn't only take photographs of the "famous" people of his time but also royal's and politically influential people also, I particularly liked his image of queen elizabeth and also of winston churchill. unfortunately when I was in the exhibition I was unable to take photographs. (not that I knew that initially and went around taking photographs, only to be told by the security guard i wasn't allowed...ooops.) The way Beaton has photographed all of his subjects particularly that of queen Elizabeth and Winston Churchill is different to what I was expecting to see from a portrait, although they are clearly staged the atmosphere around the subject is a natural setting and makes you feel like you are given a view of the person themselves and their life instead of just an image of them.

Another favorite of mine was this of Julie Andrews, the use of the mirror to show her reflection is creative and different to many of his other works, you don't get the basic face on view you would expect to find in a portrait, there is a playful side to it which is what I like the most about the image.

While I was on the way out there was also a small selection of work from Zoe, of Zoe photography, she had used Cecil Beaton as her inspiration and taken images similar to his. I liked the way she had made associations with his work and when I came home I looked at other portraiture work she had done on her website.

http://zoephotography.co.uk/

I really like the style of her work and it was good to see how looking at past creatives can really influence a photographers style today.