Went to the opening last night, amazing number of people there. The images were surprising, especially. those that were so famous are so physically small! Texture and detail great as they are from contact prints – a lot of them.
The colour ones from the early 70’s are so typical of the lack of colour in the processing then – or rather evident of the fading etc.
I loved the Moholy Nagy pic- so much better in real life, exquisite lighting and wonderful abstract shape. It hit me then that because of these photographic artists we now create imagery that is so much more than simply reproducing what we see, we involve our emotions and knowledge and hopefully get something akin to our own self
I was also gobsmacked at the fact that curator Tansy Curtin had to choose from 400,000 photographs at the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film, located in New York. The collection here while extensive is no way near that total, so it must have been in deed an incredibly daunting job to know which ones to choose.
One image that still haunts me is the photograph of two dead boys who had been poisoned by their mother at the end of WW2 because she was not part of the victorious nations.
What an incredible poignant image for Margaret Bourke White ( 1904 to 1971) to have recorded. Not sure if I would have had the courage to do it.
Sharon Greenaway 