Photo Fans Focus on Negatives

The Scene: Wednesday’s benefit opening for the “Wings of Change” photo exhibit at the Directors Guild. On display until Dec. 8 are 100-plus photos from 60 professional photographers plus 32 shots from Los Angeles grammar- and high-school students. Diana Edkins, the curator, described the exhibit as being “like a shaman taking us on a journey that has the potential to make us smile, reflect, wince and possibly act.”

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Who Was There: Co-chairs Rhea Perlman, Fred Specktor and Pamela Robinson; plus 900 guests, including Julianne Phillips, Matthew Ralston, Jack Lemmon, Joanna Pacula, Billy Al Bengston, Sandra Bullock, Lea Thompson and former Music Center President Esther Wachtell, who said she saw a photo she wanted to buy, got the agent’s card and “now I have to go home and negotiate with my husband.”

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Most Topical Guest: Louise Caire Clark, the actress in the insurance industry-produced, anti-Clinton health-care plan ads that have so upset Hillary Rodham Clinton. Clark plays the housewife who says “there’s got to be a better way” with what the First Lady derides as “that sort of heartfelt sigh.” Well, Mrs. Clinton will be happy to learn Clark is a fervent Democrat. “I’m a single mother and I just went on a job,” the actress said, adding that her 16-year-old son, who campaigned for Clinton, said: “Mom, I didn’t know we needed money so bad.”

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Money Matters: Giorgio Beverly Hills underwrote the exhibit and the party. The $400,000 raised went to Los Angeles Cities in Schools, a dropout prevention program. “I feel like termites have eaten the entire infrastructure of the education system,” Specktor said.

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Chow: Massive buffets of grilled meats, pastas and desserts from Along Came Mary. The food was as important as the photos to the evening because most guests work on a 10/20/30 gallery formula. Ten minutes looking at the work, 20 minutes eating and 30 minutes schmoozing with drink in hand.

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Pastimes: For $1,500, guests could have their pictures taken by Tina Barney, George Lange or Dan Winters in a professional setting with lights, reflectors, background and a 4-by-5 view camera. If the DMV were run by Vogue, this is the way driver-license photos would be shot.

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Quoted: “The recognition of a powerful image is the whole trick,” said Winters about photography. “It boils down to: Don’t push the button until you see the picture in the little window.”