Tuesday, January 06, 2009

"Dream Museum - Architectural Masterpiece of Japan" Exhibition

Size does matter. Walking into the exhibition and seeing the Youmeimon at Nikko stretched over a whole wall, you can't help being impressed. While I'm not much of a pixel peeper myself, I appreciate the fact that this kind of sharpness at such a size requires appropriate equipment and the knowledge to operate it effectively.

But while the exhibition is to be commended on a technical level, there's something lacking artistically. What distinguishes competent architectural photography from brilliant architectural photography, is an intelligent awareness of the range of natural/artificial light available and how it will impact on conveying the atmosphere of the space to the viewer; an warm afternoon glow peeping into a room to bring out the gold-plated reliefs, the diffusion of grey sky to expose the austerity of a dark temple interior. While this kind of awareness is present in some of the photographs, it's clearly lacking in others - for instance, the unattractive haze of a glaring sky in the Itsukushima photos.

I'm guessing that time constraints in the shooting process would have something to do with the unevenness of the works selected, but this is where filters and darkroom fiddling should step in. Definitely an exhibition worth seeing for those interested in Architecture, not necessarily one for those interested in Architectural photography.

Venue: Fujifilm Square
Schedule: From 2008-12-23 To 2009-01-28
Exhibition Hours: 10:00-19:00, Closed 12/27 (Sat)-1/4(Sun)
Address: West 1F & 2F, Tokyo Midtown, 9-7-3 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0052
Phone: 03-6271-3350

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