Working with the beautiful Kate B who tells me she was discovered at the bus station in the small town where she's from in Russia and that it's three hours by bus plus eighteen hours by train from Moscow!

Looking for locations in Bushwick.

Shooting in New York for the next ten days. Here's the view from my room at the Wythe hotel...

Suzanne Lanza and her daughter Sofia Grace for the LA families story published today in D La Repubblica.

Portrait of John and Simone Rocha for the April issue of Harper's Bazaar UK.

Last day in Connemara for a while and turning the boat over to prepare it for a good paint job. Thanks to Josie, James and John. Sad to be leaving.

My daughter Violet and my step-son Finbar at Finbar's 21st Birthday Party last night. I think the theme was Cleopatra but not sure Finbar told anyone this!

George Catlin's 1832 portrait of Stu-mick-o-sucks, Buffalo Bull's Back Fat, Head Chief, Blood Tribe, Blackfoot. The Blackfoot were a tribe of the northernmost Plains - a territory that straddles the present-day border betwen US and Canada. "Catlin considered the people of the northernmost Plains the least corrupted by white contact, and he helped establish their image as nature's noble people in Europe as well as America." Worth seeing this exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
http://www.npg.org.uk

Much as I love Many Ray's photos I was somewhat underwhelmed by the Man Ray Portraits exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in London. Maybe they've just become too familiar to me. Fortunately, I was able to get a sneak preview (one of the perks of being an NPG member!) of George Catlin's American Indian Portraits, which I've never seen before. During the 1830s Catlin made five trips to the western United States to document the native American people and their way of life. This was a time of rapid change in the American West. By 1837 over 45,000 indigenous people had been removed from their homeland in South Eastern US. Catlin was an opponent of white encroachment onto Indian lands, which he thought would lead to the inevitable extinction of Native American cultures in all their variety. The Sioux, Blackfoot, Choctaw, Comanche and Kichapoo are just some of those he painted. One of my favourite's is the portrait of Stu-mick-o-sucks, Buffalo Bull's Back Fat - a chief of the Blackfoot.
http://www.npg.org.uk

Just screened Tarkovsky's 'Stalker' for the first time in ages - yes, still working my way through Sight and Sounds greatest films of all time (Stalker: 29th equal with Shoah in the Critics' top 100 and 30th in the Directors')! It's an extraordinary film (though my favourite Tarkovsky film is 'Andrei Roublev') and I particularly love the last scene, from which this image is taken. Now I'm going to read Geoff Dyer's book 'Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room'. Appears that Dyer has been obsessed by 'Stalker' since he first saw it (not sure when that was but I'm sure all will be revealed) and this is his exploration of it.