Annie Leibovitz's Life picture series

Annie Leibovitz's exhibition A Photographer's Life, has now been showing for two week at the National Portrait Gallery in London, but it's still hard to get a ticket to see the photographs.

After two hours wait (I bought my tickets at 2pm, for the last showing of the day, at 4:30), I finally made it into the main hall of the exhibition.

Most pictures were in black and white, ranging from artistic shots of athletes to the famous pregnant and naked, Demi Moore (Vanity Fair cover, 1991).

Annie Leibovitz seems to like taking nudes. Her photos are extremely personal, sometimes intrusive but always striking. There is something almost voyeuristic about them.

Most of the exhibition is a simple and clear illustration of its title: it is a showcase of intimate moments, taken from the photographer's family and romantic life.

There is a side-gallery plastered with 6x4in shots: a retrospective of her life, ranging from holiday pictures in Paris, photographs of Leibovitz's daughter, her lover Susan Sontag in hospital after she had been diagnosed with leukaemia (she died in 2004), to pictures of her mother and father on a day out to the sea.

The exhibition is worth seeing but not for its fashion photography collection. The latest photographs showcased were taken in 2005, so there are none of her latest Vogue shoots or her Disney Dream Portrait Series.

Beauty versus prettiness: what makes a new fashion face

Beauty is a very elusive thing.

Earlier today I was looking at some photos from the Australian fashion week. I was rather surprised to see how the models have very different features from the ones I am used to see on the catwalks.

I know beauty is constantly changing, especially in fashion: agents spot a new girl or a new look every three months.

It was the case with Twiggy, Naomi Campbell, Gemma Ward or Rosie Huntington-Whiteley (one of the new faces of the late noughties year).

Faces change because newness sells.

But I also think there is something more to it. The girls that start the trends have a characteristic: they have presence. That's what makes fashion photography so vibrant.

Beauty is the opposite of prettiness. It has nothing to do with fashion. On the contrary, someone like Angelina Jolie or Christy Turlington still turns heads when she is wearing a dirty old tee-shirt and no makeup.

It's a fascinating (and unfair!) gift. That's why, it's worth looking back twice at someone who caught your attention. Beauty is like a collectible you can store in your memory. A bit like an uncanny landscape.

Vogue's 1950 unpublished nude shot

It's crazy how many fashion shots get thrown aside. It's a bit like getting rid of your embarrassing holiday pictures.

Except that those unpublished photographs are incredible.

Today I discovered Norman Parkinson.

While skimming though my new Unseen Vogue book, I was blown away by one of his nudes: a model, lying nonchalantly on a sofa, surrounded by 1950's girdles, corselettes and suspender belts.

It's astoundingly glamorous and really doesn't look like it was taken in 1950. It might be the way the model looks at the camera. (Or the fact that it's hard to imagine this girl is now the same age as my Nan...)

I don't know why it was never published in Vogue. It might have been the frontal nudity. Even now, models don't often appear fully naked in magazines. Although Diva magazine did make an Anti-fashion - naked issue (October 2008).

It might be time to bring back the concept in fashion glossies.