Photographing the Past

"When History Becomes Art" was the lecture topic today at the VA Historical Society and the lecturer was Denise Bethel, director of the photography department at Sotheby's in New York (and originally a Richmond native). Her stories about how they acquired some of the 19th century photographs to be auctioned off were fascinating, mainly because so often the donors had no idea of the value of the pictures. And the values? Back in the 90s, daguerreotypes were going for $20,000, sometimes even $50,000 if they were particularly notable or unusual. These days, she informed us, they can easily go for $100,000 and up each, some even reaching into the millions and many end up in public collections for all to appreciate.

But the glimpse they provide of lives lived long ago make them worth every penny, it seems to me. One was a shot of the US Capital with the second dome in place after the first burned. Another was a composite of every member of the Virginia General Assembly during Polk's administration. A photograph of a renowned surgeon showed him with his hand on a baby's skeleton and a model of a wax heart in front of him. Fascinating stuff.

The shift from photography as a means of documentation (people, buildings, projects) to an art form in and of itself was the underlying theme of the lecture and ties into the current exhibit at VHS, "Photography in Virginia." It's definitely worth checking out.