Ray Man photography show at the NGV

So here I am sitting at home.

Broadband is set up and now is wireless! And both of us are connected.

Despite feeling ill I managed to drag myself into town today to see the Man Ray photography show at the NGV, which is finishing this weekend. Let me begin by saying how impressed I was! The work is surprisingly interesting. Lots of small intriguing prints(perhaps contact prints), often with marks on them that appear to be ideas for cropping etc. The diversity of the work was excellent as well, I expected lots of solarisation but his work extends well beyond that. Some wonderful portraits, great fashion photography, and some really kooky dadaist images/ideas.

The marks he made, Man Ray, really impressed me. They added to the images in a way that I'm having trouble articulating, and it is of course something that could be easily done using a digital app, such as Photoshop or some other image editing program. The size was just perfect too. I'm sure that they were contact prints. Must buy the catalog, one day.

Something that is running through my mind at the moment is surrealism and digital photography, how would have these guys (the surrealists) handled it all, what kind of images would have they made, or would they have thought it all too easy to just cut and paste and juxtapose using a computer? What was their position on technology and culture? Maybe I'll find out one day, maybe I'll get an oppurtunity to work it all out, who knows but in the meantime, I'm gunna have fun thinking about it I'm sure!