I used to lift weights amongst bears and wolves. Back in 1990 I was given a bench press and weights, but had no room in the flat for it. A colleague pointed out there was plenty of space in one of the storage rooms at work, so I set it up there and would lift weights each morning before work. I worked in the natural history unit of the then-National Museum, though, so was surrounded by mounted bears and big cats, regarded by rows of glassy-eyed hunting trophies. You get used to it. Everybody in a museum gets used to being surrounded by treasures. It takes a visitor to remind us. When you open a cabinet and reveal a dozen huia some people have almost a religious experience, whereas I can't not notice some of those mounts are looking shabby, and most have lost some tail feathers.
Jane Ussher was awestruck by the huia. She set up her lights in the corner of Te Papa's crustacea store, and for two weeks a succession of curators and collection managers like a conveyor belt brought her wonderful things on a conveyor belt to photograph. In her introduction she describes the two weeks stretching into three as there was just so much amazing /stuff/. to see. The museum staff patiently answered her questions and humoured her desire to arrange shells and wrens into decorative patterns, and her unfeigned gratitude to them gushes from the page. It's obvious this was one of the highlights of her career, and her photographer's eye jumps greedily from iridescent feathers to handwritten labels to the old newspapers specimens were wrapped in.
[Full review pending in Reading Room] ( )