Camera as Recorder and Storyteller : Photography: Show combines work of three who have turned their lenses on subjects as diverse as the American desert, mannequins and deteriorating posters.

The versatility of the camera--its ability to be everything from an eyewitness to a storyteller--is abundantly evident in a three-man show opening today at the Orlando Gallery in Sherman Oaks.

The photographers have chosen wildly different subjects, as is suggested by the exhibit’s title, “Mannequins, Monuments and Marilyn Monroe.” In Kevin Lynch’s works, a series of large black-and-white photos of the desert, the camera is the straightforward eyewitness, offering a window on a world recorded at the pinnacle of its beauty.

The photos are the “Monuments” portion of the show’s title because some were taken in Arizona’s Monument Valley.

The “Mannequins” are in Anthony Hall’s work. Hall uses the camera as a storyteller. We peek in on a scene that has been designed and costumed. Hall mixes department store mannequins and living models to make statements on the human condition in the late 20th Century.

Somewhere in the middle is the work of Don Weinstein, who owns a custom photo lab in Hollywood. For years, he has photographed Hollywood street posters in various stages of decay, often capturing surprisingly evocative pictures. His best-known piece is a weathered poster of Marilyn Monroe wearing a jacket turned up against the cold. Rain has made streaks like tears on her face, and graffiti mars her shoulder. She is at once beautiful and defeated.

Although the Marilyn picture is on display, Weinstein’s major contribution to the Orlando Gallery exhibit is what he calls the “Mayan Series.” These photos are of posters that have been on a wall outside the Mayan Theatre--now a nightclub--in downtown Los Angeles for 20 years or more. A neighboring building is close enough for the posters to receive some protection, but far enough away for the elements and people to take their toll.

“I was at the Mayan, and I walked outside for some fresh air,” said Weinstein, 35, who lives in Los Angeles. “It was unbelievable to me when I saw these.”

Years of watching posters come and go have taught him just how ephemeral they are. Often within days they are torn off or plastered over by a competing message.

“The posers I shoot come and go so fast that it’s something to find these that have been around for 25 years,” he said.

Several are from the Mayan’s incarnation as a porn theater. One, for a movie called “The Cocktail Hostess,” features a drawing of a woman in short shorts. Weathering has framed her until she appears like a centerpiece in a parchment document, and the poster’s lurid reds have faded to a biblical rubric. Simply by enduring, sleaze has acquired a measure of dignity.

Another poster has one of the telling juxtapositions that Weinstein delights in finding. Pictured is Jim Morrison. Weinstein is unsure whether the poster advertised a concert, movie or magazine article. Morrison shows his famous full-lipped pout. Just below him are words from another poster, apparently from a porn flick--”pretty wet lips.”

“To me, these are treasures,” Weinstein said. “Here are posters that were a statement of a time. I try to present them in a way that’s bigger than life.”

Hall’s mannequin series started when he was on an assignment in Mexico City and got the chance to shoot in a mannequin factory. He mixed live models with the lifeless ones and soon was exploring the possibilities for statements. Fashion designer Jack Payne helped him set up the scenes.

“I came out of the ‘60s,” said Hall, 41, “and grew up with the idea that if our values come out of the things that we can hold and sell, then we are much more plasticized. So a person who is like a mannequin can represent spiritual absence.”

Looked at another way, the mannequin can represent a person unable to break out of paralyzing fear or inhibition. One photo shows a male mannequin watching as a live model in lingerie reclines on a couch and a man--the mannequin’s rival, perhaps, or the person he wishes he were--stands nearby.

“I look at the mannequin and see pain, a feeling of not being able to do anything with his world,” Hall said. “To me, he embodies a human characteristic.”

Hall, who lives in Sylmar, shot some of the series in the Mexico City mannequin factory and some in the home of a mannequin collector in Orange.

“She had about 300 of them living there with her,” he said. “It made for a bit of an odd feeling.”

Although he is a U. S. citizen, Lynch brings a European eye to the American landscape. Lynch, 32, was born in Chicago but raised and educated in France, Belgium and West Germany. He got an extensive view of his native country during four years on the road assisting in the production of a book called “Red Couch.”

“We used a red couch as the unifying element,” he said. “From the rich to the poor, celebrities to unknowns, everyone was photographed there on the couch.”

During the tour, Lynch was struck by the beauty of the U. S. deserts. He later began to shoot there, using a panoramic camera. The camera uses black-and-white film that is 6 by 17 centimeters in size, four shots to a roll. The huge photos give a tremendous sense of being there.

“The desert is really a Zen place for me,” Lynch said. “The land and the sky meet each other in a way that you just don’t see anywhere else.”

Many of the pictures have cloud-filled skies. The clouds block sunlight in some areas and accentuate it in others, lending the photos an exaggerated reality.

“At most of the places, I used just one roll,” Lynch said. “I’d get up before sunrise and sit and wait until I liked the sky.”

He hired an Indian guide to take him to little-known places. In more-traveled spots, he encountered mostly foreign tourists.

“You see tons of Germans, some Japanese, people from all over Europe. But not many Americans. It’s like they don’t know what’s in their own back yard.”

The gallery will have a reception from 8 to 10 p.m. today for the photographers. The public is invited. All the works are for sale.