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Unfortunately I missed Garys post about the mini-meet and ended up going early on Saturday morning. The exhibition was very interesting for a number of reasons...firstly, for the number of brilliant images and portraits that were on the wall, including his most famous, 'THE STEERAGE' which from memory was the first photograph to sell for more than a million US dollars and was at one stage the most expensive photograph in the world. ( Later on I think Ansel Adams 'MOONRISE OVER FERNANDEZ' eclipsed the above print for value but I'm not positive on that). Another very interesting aspect of the exhibition was the number of duds on the wall...all of those dark little cloudscapes that should have been consigned to the rubbish bin. What the hell was he thinking? But then, it was the 1930s.Still, most of us have thrown better work than that into the recycle bin and right we were to do that. They were the most unappealing little black and white images I have ever seen. And there were so many of them! Like more than 20!
Another observation I made was that the reproductions in the catalogue/book were of much better technical quality than the originals?????? The power of PhotoShop was obvious here and I find it very curious that there was so much more quality that was able to be squeezed out of the images. Stieglitz himself would have been impressed.

Then there was the curious presentation...the tiny 5 x 4 prints that hid any defects in sharpness. Small can be beautiful but most of his better images deserved greater presence and I think were not shown to their full capacity. Small can also look cheap. I'm presuming that most of these were contact prints which give the best quality from a negative because no optics are required. And lastly....dark can look moody but many of his prints were way too dark....printed down very hard, and I think they gave up some of their impact because of that. Too dark is too dark and I would love to see some of those portraits reworked digitally. A great exhibition!
Whilst there I took a few photographs as I love the gallery as subject matter...critique welcome

Good to hear that you have done a bit of scouting ahead of any mini-meet, I am sure you will still come along.

It is always interesting to see other photographer's work. I am unsure if Ansel eclipsed Stieglitz, but Moorise was at one point the record holder!

I like the last shot best, although I also like
the second one very much. I saw those painting
here in Brisbane last year or the one before and
I thought they were thought provoking.

Matt,

I love the second of these. It's so simple, so ordinary.

And just so damn good!

That's one of the things that I love about your images: you are so good at taking the ordinary, and making it into the extraordinary.

As to the exhibition: I'm confident that you may want to pay it a return visit.

Good to hear that you have done a bit of scouting ahead of any mini-meet

yeah and thanks for the detailed opinion about it also