At the MFA: Two Photo Exhibits, Lessons in Technique and Innovation

The Museum of Fine Arts and the SMFA are currently showing exhibits of two technically gifted photographers: the young South American artist Esteban Pastorino Diaz and legendary portrait photographer Yousuf Karsh.

Taking only a cursory look over "Shifting Perspectives," an exhibit of Argentinian photographer Esteban Pastorino Diaz's work, one might walk away thinking he shot a number of intricate model villages and dioramas. But the kite aerial photographer actually flew his camera 400 feet in the air, tilting the lens for a blurred effect mimicking that of a macro lens.

Aerial photography and panoramics are often utilitarian and dull, but Diaz's clever trick makes the show at the SMFA's Grossman Gallery a delight. He photographed landscapes with bright colors and simple constructions, enhancing the illusion. Recommended are several aerial photographs of a bullfight and "Monoblocks," an imagine of sienna brick high rise apartments, tract housing, parkways, green spaces, and turquoise pools. From this vantage point, the same shapes and several bright colors repeating look as contrived and artificial as a toy train stop.

In addition to these landscape pictures, Diaz takes 3D panorama photographs, setting them in light boxes (3D view glasses are provided at the door). This effect gives these pictures movement. A photograph of a queue of people waiting at an airport appears comical, while the towers in a city skyline seem ominous as they pop out and sway. The exhibit is up through Oct. 13.

Around the corner, in the museum proper is an exhibit celebrating legendary photographer Yousuf Karsh's 100th birthday. He is responsible for the images most of us associate with varied film stars, intellectuals, and statesmen like Winston Churchill, Jacques Cousteau, Audrey Hepburn, John F. Kennedy, and Ernest Hemingway. This exhibit also highlights some of his early and lesser-known work.