[pure-silver] A Walk Through the Exhibition

Dear Friends,
    Just back from my week's holiday in Melbourne. If that seems a strange 
place to go to escape from care, consider the fact that they have hotels, hot 
running water, and bookshops. My days of camping in a hoochie with a rifle and 
a billy of tea are over....

    They also have the National Gallery of Victoria - this last week exhibiting 
a Man Ray room with many of his famous photographs. I am assuming that what I 
saw were many originals, but I am unsure whether I saw final prints or just 
darkroom work prints. In any case I was somewhat taken aback by them.

     Not from an artistic standpoint, I hasten to add - I have several books on 
Man Ray and his assistants and recognised many of the images. What puzzled me 
was their presentation.

     Small. Dark. Raggedy-edged. Crumpled and flattened-out. Spotty. Bronzing 
over. All matted beautifully, but sometimes lost in the center of a vast frame. 
I'm talking about a 6 cm x 9 cm image in a 12 in x 16 in frame. And smaller in 
larger. Some images up to 11 x 14 but none what I would have come to believe 
was an exhibition size.

    Is this what happens at other international exhibitions? None of the images 
looked like the posters used for the advertising - these were closer to what I 
had seen in books. I am wondering a little cynically if the look of some 
photographers is made by their printer and indeed the publisher's printer 
rather than themselves.

    Still fascinating images nevertheless - enjoyed it once I overcame my 
surprise.

    Uncle Dick
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