More Photography

This week I did another tour of the galleries on Chelsea.  I saw four very high quality shows of black and white photographs, by Robert Adams, the Bechers, Brett Weston, and Robert Frank, plus a show entitled 7 Americans, which recreated a show put on by the American photographer and gallery maestro Alfred Steiglitz in the early 20th century, which combined black and white photographs with abstract color watercolors and paintings.   One of the problematic aspects of photography is the fact that many photographs can be reproduced in excellent quality in books, and in the case of some photographers, the difference in quality between the real thing and the "reproduction" is negligible.   In the shows I saw, though, the quality of the most of the prints was superb, and they have a particular glow and sheen to them that comes from the photographic processes used to print and develop them.