Cultural Event 3: Getty Museum

For my third cultural event I decided to go visit the museum that I see every day, but have never visited: The Getty. I wanted to go into the Getty and find a connection to our class without writing the exact same thing as the Hammer museum. Both museums contain works of art such as paintings and drawings, but one thing I noticed at the Getty that I did not notice at the Hammer was photography.

The idea of the camera started in the fifth century B.C. when Mo Ti, a chinese philosopher, created a pinhole in a wall and when the light passed through the hole it would project an inverted image of the outside on a dark wall inside. Initially this phenomenon was used for observation purposes; that is until 1839 when the daguerreotype camera was invented for commercial use. This is when the device was first used to capture things such as landscapes and portraits.

Since then the use of the camera has evolved immensely and has become an integral part of our lives. I ran across an exhibit in the Getty, which caught my eye, and I was a little bit confused when I saw the word photography on the wall with an arrow pointing to an exhibit. I thought to myself, “How is it that people can capture the artwork of Mother Nature on camera and call it their own?” So I walked into the photography exhibit and was pleasantly surprised with what I saw. On the walls were an assortment of pictures that captured everyday items, such as forks and pencils. But what was different was the lighting and placement of items that was captured in the photograph. These artists did not simply just take a picture, but they positioned the items and changed the lighting in order to convey a meaning other than simply, “a pencil on a table.” They also used the distorting effects of water in their images to create interesting photos.                                            

The invention of the camera was not only technological marvel used for capturing images, but it was also a way for artists to express themselves. I saw plenty of other paintings and sculptures at the Getty, but for me this was the most interesting because its not something you see every day and generally not the first thing you think of when I say “art.” 


"Camera." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 June 2013. Web. 10 Dec. 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera>.