(no subject)
May. 22nd, 2006 08:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
essayelThought for the day: Just because someone made a mistake in the past there's no need to perpetuate it in the present.
Unless, of course, you work in a museum.
Here's the situation. We have in our collection a photograph of a small boy in a choirboy's surplice and short trousers showing bare knees standing in front of an ornately carved altar. Someone asked us for a copy of it so the boss scanned it in and ran off a few copies. Looking at one of them I noticed that the deeply carved Latin inscription across the reredos behind the alter was reversed. I pointed this out and was told that the photographic print was like that too, the photographer obviously having printed it up with the negative arse about face. I suggested using the 'mirror' command to get it round the right way and was told that, no, we couldn't do that because they had asked for a copy of the original. I said that presumably the photographer had intended to get it right and the recipient might like it the right way roundand got sighed at and told that originals where what were asked for and so that's what they would get.
Okay - I see the point. Once something is accessioned into the collection, that's it, it's here in perpetuity. But couldn't we also honour the intent? I bet the photographer, the guy who commissioned the photo, the bare kneed sprog and the eventual recipient of the copies we so carefully made would really appreciate seeing it as it was intended to be seen.
*sigh* I reckon it's thinking like this that makes me inappropriate management material.
In other business:
I have hardly any white left on my big sheet of paper, all the washes having gone down. Now I need to paint the detail on top. I have nine days *sigh*.
It's just occurred to me that Snape is the archetypal 'emo'.
Er - that's all, brain's closing down.
Unless, of course, you work in a museum.
Here's the situation. We have in our collection a photograph of a small boy in a choirboy's surplice and short trousers showing bare knees standing in front of an ornately carved altar. Someone asked us for a copy of it so the boss scanned it in and ran off a few copies. Looking at one of them I noticed that the deeply carved Latin inscription across the reredos behind the alter was reversed. I pointed this out and was told that the photographic print was like that too, the photographer obviously having printed it up with the negative arse about face. I suggested using the 'mirror' command to get it round the right way and was told that, no, we couldn't do that because they had asked for a copy of the original. I said that presumably the photographer had intended to get it right and the recipient might like it the right way roundand got sighed at and told that originals where what were asked for and so that's what they would get.
Okay - I see the point. Once something is accessioned into the collection, that's it, it's here in perpetuity. But couldn't we also honour the intent? I bet the photographer, the guy who commissioned the photo, the bare kneed sprog and the eventual recipient of the copies we so carefully made would really appreciate seeing it as it was intended to be seen.
*sigh* I reckon it's thinking like this that makes me inappropriate management material.
In other business:
I have hardly any white left on my big sheet of paper, all the washes having gone down. Now I need to paint the detail on top. I have nine days *sigh*.
It's just occurred to me that Snape is the archetypal 'emo'.
Er - that's all, brain's closing down.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-05-22 08:15 pm (UTC)Somebody had a Roman villa found on their sheep pasture, and after the dig is finished and the owner gets the sheep pasture back, he goes and reconstructs the villa, painstakingly, from the reconstructions the archaeological team had done.
School kids, teachers and tourists love the place to bit; it's become a major attraction for the terminally dull little town. Visiting archaeologist sneers subtly and says, 'You can't be sure the windows were just like that, but of course, that man had good intentions...'