Much as I love to go see photography exhibits I usually only go to lectures by book authors. They are more interesting. Unless you can find lectures by photographers like Elliott Erwitt.

 I have been in and out of the HRC (Humanities Research Center, also named, The Harry Ransom Center) many, many times. In days of yore I could arrange to take my photography classes from UT to the center to see some of the collected works in their great repository of famous photography. In the 1980s when I taught in the College of Fine Arts we could make reservations to have curators show our students actual, original works by Strand, Steiglitz, HCB, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and many others which are part of the Gernscheim Collection.

The class sizes I took over were small. Just my teaching assistant and six or eight students at a time. Curators would hand out white, cotton gloves and then we'd get a quick tutorial on how to handle paper prints without crimping them or otherwise marring them. Once educated we would pass around say, a Weston contact print of Peppers so students could see what great prints really looked like. Some prints only got handled by the museum's staff. But we could lean in and really study them in detail.

I remember one image that Henri Cartier-Bresson made of the Pope at the Vatican plaza surrounded by hundreds and hundreds of people. Just tightly packed in around the Holy Father. HCB had a high vantage point. The image was striking. Printed 16x20 inches (which is why student weren't allowed to handle it directly). But, as most of the students pointed out, HCB had missed focusing very precisely on the most important part of the subject. The Pope was rendered soft. Slightly out of focus. But what a powerful object lesson for aspiring photographic artists. Everything doesn't have to be perfect.

I was at the HRC for a lecture by Laura Wilson a month or two ago. And I was there last Thursday for a lecture about Norman Mailer and James Baldwin, given by writer, Darryl Pinckney.

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darryl_Pinckney 

The talk was thoughtful and interesting. Afterwards there was a reception with wines and finger foods. And I walked around the first floor of the HRC just looking. That's when I came across this image presented as a transparent film on one of the HRC windows. Part of a classic Dorothea Lange photograph from the FSA. 

In another part of the gallery space was one of the very first photos.... ever.

Altogether it made me happy to live in a city that can be so stimulating for artists. Well, at least for the artists who show up.  

Here is a video my friend Will and I did years ago about the loan of the Magnum Collection to the HRC by Michael Dell.  Fun. And also in "monochrome." 

https://vimeo.com/9830948  Will and I filmed this 13 years ago...