I had the opportunity to take an afternoon and visit the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) this weekend with some great friends. It had been in a decade or more since I’d been there last. It wasn’t at all how I remembered it.
Perhaps I’m in a different state of mind these days.
There are amazing exhibits. More than anyone could really absorb in an afternoon or even a day. But it wasn’t the contents of the ROM that got my creative juices flowing but rather the building itself. The place is like a sketch book. A blank sketchbook and around every corner is another page to be filled. The most amazing angles and curves, filled with the most subtle natural light. Everything white, with only light and shadow to define shape. I could have spent the day shooting the staircases alone.
And so for most of the afternoon I ignored the Roman artifacts and million year old dinosaurs and instead spent the day in empty corners, window wells, and dead end hallways.
My art history professor when I was studying photography was an interesting man. To be honest, at the time I didn’t really like him. Pompous, with little patience for those who didn’t love the things he loved. Namely art in any form. He was the first to educate me in light (outside what I knew as a very green photographer). He taught us about Notan and chiaroscuro and the amazing things one could do with a collection of simple tones. Some of the photos here remind me of sketches he would have us do as students. Forcing us to sit and analyze some nondescript subject and break it down to it’s tones. Deconstruction I guess.
No one has since been able to explain those concepts to me like he did. These pictures remind me of him.
I can’t wait to go back to the ROM!
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