He is a camera

As a former student of art history, I feel obliged to read oodles into whatever I view. But the symbolism/meaning doesn't always come naturally. Sure, there's intention and design behind every artwork (even if the first is simply to avoid the second), but they're not always obvious. In the photographs of Lewis Morley, they are. Every pic makes you think, "Hey, that's...and that's...and that's..." I know because I just toured a collection of his photos at the Art Gallery Of NSW. A bit of background: Morley's most famous for his shot of "Profumo Affair" vixen Christine Keeler straddling a chair the wrong way round and his "bodybuilder" shots of gay playwright Joe Orton. He took portrait pics of all the big names of the 60s in England, plus some slebs from the Continent. They're black-and-white and each captures its subject(s) so well you just wanna look at it over and over (my definition of great art). Still with me are the shots of Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller from "Beyond The Fringe". Impossibly young and talented - and they knew it. Also, the photograph of Judi Dench when she was an ingenue, sporting a blonde bob, sprawled across an armchair, book (play?) in hand; an intriguing contradiction of sex appeal and studiousness.