I had the great pleasure of hanging out with a fellow blogger yesterday. Dave Levingston, photographer of Exposed for the Shadows, was in town visiting. He and I were lucky to find a few mutually convenient hours to meet at the Met on a positively gorgeous New York afternoon. Dave was most interested to see the “Naked before the Camera” exhibition and I was delighted to see it with him. The show explores the history of photographic nudes, from the earliest examples of the 1800s to the present.
I’ve learned that it’s advantageous to see a photography exhibit with a photographer. They share with you their passion and enthusiasm, and provide opinions and insights that not even the informative wall texts can offer. Dave was no exception. The man knows his stuff.
Because all the photographs belonged to the Met’s own collection we were allowed to take pictures, which I did. But as I prepared this blog post I found that the images on the exhibition page were really amazing. So the choice was between my crappy pics with glares and glass reflections all over the place, or the superb resolutions on the museum site. Kind of a no brainer. I’ve chosen just a few which I admired for various reasons, but do visit the selected works as there is much more to see.
[Seated Female Nude] Eugene Durieu
Albumen silver print from glass negative, 1853-54
[Two Standing Female Nudes] Felix-Jacques-Antoine Moulin
Daguerreotype, ca. 1850
[Thomas Eakins and John Laurie Wallace on a Beach] Thomas Eakins
Platinum print, ca. 1883
Nude No. 57, Irving Penn
Gelatin silver print, 1949-50
