California Musuem of Photography

Recently I visited my mom at my uncle’s house in Riverside. We arrived at the California Museum of Photography at UCR, but it was closed for renovations! With a stroke of luck the director came to the door and gave us a private tour. We were the first people to see the Leica & Hasselblad exhibit. I was in photo nerd heaven. It pretty much blows the Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) out of the water!

It comprises nearly every camera ever produced by the two respective companies.

http://www.hasselbladusa.com/

http://www.leica.com/

The exhibit comes from an individual, and was only about 1/5^th of his total collection. Some of the coolest were a stereo Leica and a yellow Hassy that utilized 70mm IMAX film for extreme detail. Also on hand were the Hassy’s used in the Apollo missions. There was also a permanent area which housed a stereo (3D) collection, as well as the first daguerreotypes and tin types. It was really amazing to see all that history under one roof, but in such a modern building. The architecture reminded me of the Oakley headquarters. The 3^rd floor contained a gigantic camera obscura, so basically we were standing inside a camera (black room) and could see the image that was coming from the outside world (via small hole) projected onto the opposing wall.

Thanks again to the director Jonathan Green for opening his doors to me and my family and providing great insight into his spectacular new exhibits.

Mom and I at Philip Brett’s memorial garden.