On 6/15/2016 4:12 PM, Christopher Crawford wrote:
Moose,
Museums and galleries display photographs the same way on their walls that
I display them on my website. Its been this way for a century, and I doubt
the art world will change that tradition anytime soon.
I hesitate to say that I may have viewed more art in major museums than you have, as my own experience is limited. OTOH,
I've been in a lot of museums that use colored or neutral gray walls for photographs as well as other art. I think pure
white walls may not be as universal as you believe.
OTOH, over the last few years, I've visited, often multiple times, The Fine Arts Museums of SF(2), Oakland Museum of
Calif.,Seattle Art Museum, Frye Art Museum in Seattle, MFA Boston, Isabelle Stuart Museum Boston, Worcester Art Museum,
Peabody-Essex Art Museum, NY Met, Brooklyn Art Museum, Portland Maine Art Museum, and others.
Most of these museums display art on not only non white, but often non neutral colored walls. The major St. Ansel
exhibit at Peabody Essex in 2012 was on medium or dark walls, as I recall. No photography was allowed, so I have to rely
on memory, but seem to recall they were neutral colored. The major Avedon exhibit, which we saw at MFA, used lots of
wall brightnesses, including one part with dark walls and very low lighting, except for dramatic lighting of the
photographs. <http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Tech/Print_Display&image=IMG_1399coroof50.jpg>
I don't take many photos of photos in museums because the lighting is usually such that It's impossible to get a shot
without off the glass, including me, and/or lots of reflections of spot lighting. Still, I browsed through my photos in
several museums. By far the majority are against walls that are not white, and generally not neutral.
This Weston print is fairly typical. The matted and framed image.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Tech/Print_Display&image=_1000413oof50.jpg>
As displayed.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Tech/Print_Display&image=_1000414.jpg>
One of the more important venues for viewing photography in the country is
Pier24, in SF.
"I have not seen anything like it," says SFMOMA curator of photography Sandra Phillips
<http://www.sfgate.com/search/?action=search&channel=bayarea&inlineLink=1&searchindex=gsa&query=%22Sandra+Phillips%22>,
who has seen every major photography repository in the Western world. "There are photography museums, but nothing so
spectacular and so personal and so giving to the experience of looking at a photograph. The whole thing is truly
unique." <http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Vast-photo-collection-shown-in-S-F-warehouse-3189236.php>
Pier24 does use mostly neutral wall colors, in various brightnesses. But framing and lighting are such that the images
are anything but flat images against a flat white background. They always stand out. <http://pier24.org/exhibitions/>
Assuming you are correct about the century old tradition, you are wrong about
it not changing.
Showing that way on
my website gives the buyers of my work a true representation of how the
image will look framed and matted.
Here again, I must disagree. The central image may certainly be representative of the matted and framed image, but
against a pure, full brightness white background, it doesn't represent what it will look like on their wall.
A framed, matted print is a 3D object. It stands off/out from the surface on which it is hung; there are shadows. Very
few domestic walls are pure white, with completely even lighting. I have photographs hung on my close to pure white
walls that I have also seen in on-line galleries. They are very much not the same.
The Avedon traveling exhibit also had some light walls. This image, with light mat and frame about the same color as the
wall still stands out against the wall, not just because of the arresting image itself, but because of the shadows.
<http://galleries.moosemystic.net/MooseFoto/index.php?gallery=Tech/Print_Display&image=IMG_1408coroof40.jpg>
Magnum’s website displays their members’ work this way, as does the Museum of Modern Art’s website. The Metropolitan
Museum of Art uses a very slightly subdued white background to display works from their collection online (level 251
instead of 255).
You name sites that are destinations, major institutions names with major, well known work to sell. You aren't yet in
that category. Anything you can do to make the appearance of the images you wish to sell more appealing has to be useful.
I was just providing the opinion of one person who has been known to buy photographs and finds the presentation of
images on your site unappealing. I'm used to it, and mostly ignore that aspect, but those two sunsets seemed to my eye
so much less appealing than they could be that I risked your tendency to react defensively to any suggestions and spoke
up anyway. Reacting defensively to me does no one any good. When someone is trying to be helpful, isn't it better to
listen, consider whether there's anything of value there, then go ahead however you wish.
Moose D'Opinion
--
What if the Hokey Pokey *IS* what it's all about?
--
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