Missoula Art Museum

Azia and Breeze checking out the display of Debra Earling's book The Lost Journals of Sacagawea

A small group of fourth graders joined one of the fifth grade classes on a field trip to the Missoula Art Museum today. The MAM currently has an Ansel Adams exhibit which was very cool for the kids.  They liked the photos and the museum staff did a great job getting them to look closely at some of them and learn a little about the photographic elements Adams was working with and the different places he photographed.

Our docent started the tour by explaining the process Adams used and showing the kids the types of cameras he worked with, emphasizing how big and heavy and complicated they were. Then after a lot of leading information (that I thought pretty clearly lead kids to answer “cell phones”) she asked the group what we usually used to take photos now. 

Azia raised her hand & when she was called on to answer replied,  “Definitely a Nikon.”

The woman was caught a little off guard, but then explained that she too used a Nikon and DSLR cameras were really the way to go, but of course a lot of people did just use their cell phones.

Then the woman explained how Adams adjusted his images in the darkroom to get the effects he wanted and sort of gave an overview of techniques like burning and dodging and asked if any of them had ever been in a darkroom. Azia told her, “You can do that on the computer. I’d just use photoshop.”

The woman was a bit taken back again, but then started talking about how it was great that we had this great program “printshop” to do this all now. 

Yes, I think Azia might be my daughter.