Case in point: the MIA’s new photography exhibit, Southern Exposure: Photographs of the American South, featuring 75 photographs culled from the museum’s permanent collection. This isn’t the sort of exhibit too many people would be compelled to pay for. It’s located in one of the MIA’s smaller galleries, most of the photos themselves aren’t very large, and their cumulative effect isn’t overwhelming. But if you take the time to get up close and look at the photos, your effort will be rewarded with a unique and thoughtful peek at the American south as seen through the lenses of some of our nation’s finest photographers.
The show opens with a few old Civil War photos and quickly moves to a series of images by E.J. Bellocq, of prostitutes in New Orleans’ red-light district (left), an area known as Storyville. (In the movie Pretty Baby
