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QEII: Diamond Jubilee

It's the Queen's Diamond Jubilee this month. Diamond Jubilee! What a terrific anniversary that is. I hope to have a Diamond Jubilee something someday just so I can say "Diamond Jubilee" non-stop for a few months.  In celebration of this great sounding anniversary, The National Portrait Gallery in London is holding an exhibition of...ahem...portraits that have been commissioned for her over the years. Behold a selection of a few of these...Which is your favourite?

Images from a postcard book I have from The National Portrait Gallery.

Kings Cross

Images from a great exhibition I saw last year at the Police and Justice Museum called Sin City: Crime and Corruption in 20th Century Sydney. Naturally enough, Kings Cross featured quite a bit in the archival photos and film. Here are some images of Kings Cross, or The Cross as us Sydneysiders like to call it, circa 1960, 1950, 1969 and 1970. 

Images from Sin City/ The Historic Houses Trust.

Black Cat Auditions - 1961

Pussy cat central! Another gem from the archives of LIFE magazine via that swell site Retronaut.

Love Letter to New York

Classic shots of New York from the '40s to the '60s courtesy of Life magazine.

Bill Cunningham New York

Happy Monday folks! I've had a fab weekend. Saturday was absolutely glorious here in Sydney! I managed to get in the sort of epic walk you reminisce about for years later with family and friends. Well, that's possibly a slight exaggeration, but it was pretty good. I also managed to finally get to see this doco: Bill Cunningham New York.

The 82 year old Bill Cunningham has been photographing New York street style for years. He was out and about long before The Sartorialist was even a twinkle in his mother's eye. For over 40 years his decoupage of street styles have been a fixture at The New York Times and other publications such as the now defunct Details Magazine. He is quite a character although he is obviously well loved and respected by the serious fashion crowd in Europe and North America as there are cameos by Anna Wintour, Anna Piaggi and Tom Wolfe to name but a few.

It's fun weekend viewing and is as much about New York as anything else which can never be a bad thing!

Images from here.

Debbie Harry

Debbie Harry - why not? After all, it is Monday...and you might like to accompany this post with this song here or possibly this one here (which is my personal fave).

 

All images from here.

Nature + Outdoors

Nature + Outdoors via Kate Flood's pinterest. It's spectacularly good for the head to get out into nature I find. These images make me want Autumn to hurry up so I can go walkng in The Blue Mountains! Well, it is mid-March = not long now for crisp Autumnal days!

New York in Colour

There is a fab exhibition at the Howard Greenberg Gallery called New York in Colour. The images span several decades from the 1950s to the present. Here are a few of my favourites from the exhibition.

Happy weekend!

All images from here.

Love part 2 - Epic love triangle

When someone says "epic love triangle" to me I immediately think of George Harrison, Pattie Boyd and Eric Clapton. I'm sure there have been other epic love triangles, but none that are as recent or legendary as this one. Pattie had a thing for iconic guitarists and they had a thing for her. She had several love songs written for her by these two gentlemen; the three most famous being Something, Layla and Wonderful Tonight. Incidentally, Frank Sinatra said Something was the best love song ever written.

As you may or may not know, Pattie Boyd was a model and the "It" girl of swinging sixties London when she first met George Harrison. They met on the set of "A Hard Day's Night" and instantly fell in love. Two years later they were married. However, George was allegedly a bit of a philanderer and when he was not allegedly philandering he was meditating. Meanwhile, George's close friend Eric Clapton starting pursuing the lovely Pattie in a most romantic manner. Several years of the epic love triangle followed. Anyway, one thing led to another and Pattie ended up leaving George for Eric.

Pattie was with Eric for a decade or so before they too divorced. She is now a well thought of photographer and the author of a book about her famous loves and life called Wonderful Today: George Harrison, Eric Clapton and Me.

My first instalment of "Love" can be read here.

All images from here and here.

Collection

Something else I found in my ignored cupboard (see original post here): my collection of book marks. The avid collector strikes again!

These are a real find! I used to get these at Glebe Books when there was just the one store up by the church. I wonder if they still have them? I never used them as book marks. I used them to decorate various bare bedroom walls I was living in at the time. I have many more too, but these are the nicest.