Things unseen

Yesterday was Forced Culture Day chez protected static - the boy needed to expend some energy, and I knew that walking somewhere for walking's sake just wasn't gonna fly. Ergo, Forced Culture Day: we walked to the University of Washington's Henry Art Gallery. So who in their right mind would take a five-year-old to a gallery specializing in modern art? First of all, that question presupposes that I am in my right mind. Second, they had a very cool exhibit: "Things Unseen", a display of early photography from the archives of Getty Images. I must confess, it wasn't what I'd expected at all - the banner outside showed a radiograph of a hand with a ring on, so I'd anticipated mostly x-ray photos, maybe some CAT scans or technical drawings. So I experienced more than a little trepidation upon seeing that the initial gallery was filled with conventional photos... Uh, oh. Is it too late to go to the Burke Museum? They've at least got dinosaurs. Fortunately, it was even better than an all-x-ray show would have been - the exhibit was organized to show how photography in its earliest days brought all manner of things to the attention and imagination of the broader public: photos of the moon's surface taken through a telescope, insects and diatoms through a microscope, x-rays of flowers and seashells, aerial photography, motion studies... Much of what we love about horror and science fiction was made possible by these photos, allowing as they did, the average person to see these things previously unseen. But best of all was a small series of photos depicting the Parisian underground: sewers and ossuaries. The boy was facsinated with the photos of the catacombs, and was positively delighted at the idea that one could still go to Paris and see them. I must be doing something right... As a bonus (for me), there was also an exhibition called "The old Paris is no more...". In the 1850s, the French government hired photographers to document Paris' transition from medieval city to Industrial Age capital. The boy wasn't into this so much, apart from an unusual Notre Dame/gargoyle photo, but I found the photos quote striking. And besides, what's not to like about an exhibition that takes its name from a Baudelaire poem ('The Swan' from The Flowers of Evil)? A little more information about this metamorphosis can be found here. The sun came out, and much exercise (mental as well as physical) was had by all - not a bad if somewhat risky way to spend an afternoon.