Recently I stayed overnight in Lexington, KY. It was a brief but enjoyable visit. I got to tour Mary Todd Lincoln's house, to learn about enslaved people in this border state, be introduced to Transylvania University (founded 1780), and walk through the historic Gratz Park neighborhood.
An especially enjoyable part of the visit was the hotel I stayed in - Hotel 21C. As their website states: "21c Museum Hotel Lexington is an 88-room boutique hotel, contemporary art museum, cultural center... (It) features solo and group exhibitions that reflect the global nature of contemporary culture. From the sidewalks to the lobby, there's art all around you..." https://www.21cmuseumhotels.com/lexington/
The second floor of the hotel, which is located in a renovated bank, is given over to gallery space. And in every hall way and room, art is prominently featured on the walls. I saw my very first Araki photograph (outside of a book), for instance, while having breakfast in the hotel dining room.
At one point, I made my way down one level from the lobby to find the men's room. The men's room, by the way, looked like something out of Architectural Digest. And just outside of the men's room was a large photograph, several feet across. It was taken by Michael Wesely. As the tag noted, " Michael Wesely uses innovative photographic techniques to render images of fleeting beauty in 21st-century still-lifes, effectively presenting portraits of time. Wesely, who is best known for creating years-long photo-documentation of urban building projects, employs an extended shutter speed to show yellow tulips in bud, bloom, and disintegration in a single image, their entire life span captured permanently in the photographic frame." To give you an idea, here is a snap shot I took with my phone.
When I returned home I immediately went online to learn more about Michael Wesely. He is a German photographer, born in 1963. And as the tag above noted, he took photos of building projects where the shutter was open for an entire year! Wesely builds these cameras himself, and uses extremely narrow apertures and filters, so that he can keep the shutter open for such a long time. In these images you can see the movement of the sun across the sky as the seasons changed. Here is one example entitled "Potsdamer Platz 27.3.97 - 13.12.98." Copyright by Michael Wesely.
His concept is sort of the opposite of capturing "the decisive moment." And the technological prowess he shows is stunning, in my opinion. If you are as intrigued as I was you might enjoy a lecture he gave which is available on youtube at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ZRrjgARdk&t=463s
Part of what I enjoy about roadtrips are the serendipitous discoveries that happen along the way. You may have known about Michael Wesely for a long time, but for me, he was a wonderful new discovery. Surprises abound!