DESOTO Adventurer

Ryan

Who says Toronto doesn't have culture today thanks to a UTATA walk I was fortuate enough on the same day to see not just one but 2 exhibitions of Vivian Maier's work. I'm very glad I went to both otherwise I might have left with a completely different view of her work

The work at "By Appointment" gallery was high quality gelatin silver print produced by or under the control of John Maloof. The kind of print you would expect from a master printer of old. Really enjoyed the work.

While the prints at Bulgar although a more extensive collection were high contrast prints that looked like they were printed by some hipster from flickr any of the subtle details were lost in translation. I'm not sure who did the printing, but really don't care.

At the Bulgar gallery was weighted to emphasis light an shadow in the choice of negatives. But such a misrepresented heavy handed modern hipster reinterpretation of the past was uncalled for IMHO. My disappointment lies in that much detail and information was lost through the deliberate act of removal. I've see a lot of old master works and even some modern master prints and none of them had the heavy handed over dramatic contrast curves seen in these prints. Not that there might be some examples like those to be found but I suspect they would have ended up filled as a failure in a trash bin or promoted as some modern digital photographic art, and specifically not in what is promoted as a significant historic find.

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