Quick fish around their site found this insanely huge collection of photographs... online! A search for "Collins Street" brings up 1000s of matches. Nice sized thumbnails. Apparently photocopies can be ordered for $3 each. Actual image prints from the negatives (or negative copies) are $30 each. Looking forward to finding some time to search through the archives and pick out some images to get copies of.
Been meaning to visit the State Library for ages anyway.
Friday: Shira Nui for dinner
Saturday: Cleaning, saw "Sin City"
Sunday: Antiques near Mornington. Picked up a wardrobe for Katie's birthday as well as some clothes, a funky vase, a cool picture of Conan vs Snake (really, it's cool), and a shload of old (<80s) books about Melbourne with loads of old-skool photos (more on that later). Kintochi Japanese @ Chadstone for dinner.
Monday: Cleaning, stuffing about on guitar, cooked a nice dinner with wine + beer.
Tuesday: NGV International (Dutch Masters, Pictures of the Floating World, Skin), Pancake Parlour for dinner, cake at home with family.
Much joy. Much relaxed. Definitely heading back to Mornington soon to check out more antiques.
Enjoyed Dutch Masters @ NGV. Much larger exhibit than I expected, some real quality works on display. Although something felt lacking. Not sure what it was. Bought a poster of a favourite (a still life with flowers covered in bugs) but it looks like poop compared to the real thing.
Pictures of the Floating world was also great. Old Japanese art. Very very comic-like in many cases, complete with character poses and little coloured text boxes. The colouring on many works was identical to old (50s?) coloured comics.
Skin, to be polite, was shite. Small and uninteresting. My favourite photograph (one of people diving/swimming under a wave, shot from underwater with the sun behind, nice sillouettes) wasn't even a nude.