This small gallery tour was my first time being in the Sidney Mishkin Gallery. The photographs there are beautiful — some even breathtaking. The tour was a bit short, but we were able to roam around ourselves after the speaker was done, which proved to be useful in finding interesting and unusual pictures that weren’t covered during the tour.
One particularly interesting photograph spoken about was of two fishermen in two boats. The boats were off-center, yet the photograph still held an air of reminiscence and beauty. Somehow, it felt like I could relate, even though I had never gone fishing. This previously unexplainable feeling was soon explained as a tactic many photographers use. Because the boat was off center, it made the viewer feel like he or she was actually inside the boat, riding along with the fishermen.
Magnificent aerial shots were also shown. Because these shots were taken, usually, on planes, it provided the viewer with a whole different view. Sometimes, pictures would be taken of pictures in the ground, such as a horse in one photograph. The speaker asked why someone would make a carving of a horse on the ground if they couldn’t see it from their level anyway. It was a question that no one could really answer. She said it was because of their religiosity, which I thought was very interesting.
My favorite painting had to be Sally Gall’s Selected Landscapes; Canoe. As the title suggests, it is of a big landscape, with a canoe in detailed focus near the bottom of the painting. It amazed me just how much the photograph captured of the large and vast scene. The world where the canoe was in seemed never-ending.
Being in the Sidney Mishkin Gallery for the first time was certainly an eye-opening experience, and I would love to go there again and find different things in each picture every time.