A 150-year-long exposure of Otago Daily Times
photographs has kept the Otago Museum busy with a stready
stream of visitors.
"Focal Point: 150 years of the Otago Daily Times"
celebrates the photographic history of New Zealand's oldest
daily newspaper, including historic Otago events such as the
Beatles' 1964 visit to Dunedin, the 1979 Abbotsford slip and
the 1981 Springbok tour.
Museum marketing co-ordinator Juliet Pierce said this week
the exhibition was proving popular, with 2758 visitors in its
first week.
The exhibition includes a "Memories and Favourites"
interactive station, encouraging visitors to select their
favourite photograph from the show.
Selections will be published in the ODT and on the
ODT website.
"A great range of people of all ages have been responding and
leaving comments," contents services co-ordinator Eleanor
Ross said.
"A lot of the memories have been quite specific.
"A woman told us how the photo of the Queen and Prince
Phillip in Dunedin in the 1950s reminded her of being there
dressed up in a ball gown as a debutante and how she spent
the day trying to meet the Queen.
"At one point, she and her partner were running along their
car down the street, when Prince Phillip leaned out and, in
typical Duke of Edinburgh fashion, yelled out: 'Not you two
again!"'
The most popular photographs in the exhibition voted on so
far included images of a snail on a car, a boy with a melting
ice cream and that famous feral sheep from Tarras, Shrek.
"One hundred and fifty years is a very significant
achievement for any organisation. The Otago Daily
Times is an important part of how Otago sees itself,"
museum experience and development manager Clare Wilson said.
"Focal Point: 150 years of the Otago Daily Times" is
on in the special collections gallery until June 17.
Entry is free.
- nigel.benson@odt.co.nz
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