I visited the London Metropolitan Archives yesterday. They have a small exhibition of photos on Victorian London – see here for details.
The photos were interesting but it was the exhibition values that caught my attention (just like at the Jerwood gallery the other day). Here the walls were black – let me show you.
So as you can see, images shown on paper and on screen – the latter running loops of 7 and 8 images with lots of written material by the side of the monitor giving details. There was information of types of photos such as Calotypes, carbon printing and Daguerreotype; and types of photo – Carte de visite; architectural, historical events and street.
Thoughts
I can see why the organisers used dark backgrounds because it did mean the screen photos illuminated well, but the printed photos suffered from the approach. Imagine if the above scene was light with white or light grey walls – would that not have been better?
Postscript
I created a couple of other shots I liked, but for very different reasons.
I’m just a sucker for a strong form…
anomiepete 