At the Natural History and Pitt Rivers, there was a kind of luminous open house tonight – with less frantic versions of the kind of lights used at dances, as well as shadow theatre with extensive musical accompaniment and torchlit wandering sessions through the Pitt Rivers collection. Many thanks to Antonia for the invitation and accompaniment.
The large number of people present marked this out as quite a successful event. It definitely changed the way in which you experienced the place, and the items therein. Also entertaining was the 1918 version of the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea they were screening. It’s odd how it is so accurate in some regards, and so laughably wrong in others.
PS. Walking home through Oxford at midnight on a Saturday in the spring is not recommended for those who are single and unhappy about it.
You should crop the black sections on the right and bottom of the skull photo out.
That, or make the really dark skull in the bottom left section more visible.
Such shots seem to have a lot to do with the contrast level on the monitor. The lower left skull is fairly easily visible on my iBook, but barely visible at all on the LCD monitors in the department.
Generally, I avoid excessive digital tweaking of photographs. I just resize them, sometimes adjust the levels a bit, and apply an unsharp mask.
There’s a good entry on the Natural History and Pitt Rivers Museums over at but she’s a girl.