Roger Green, The Times-Picayune, October 11, 1991
With ''mille-fleurs.'' a stunning exhibit of hand-tinted photos by Wendi Schneider, A Gallery For Fine Photography inaugurates its dramatically expanded new facility at 522 Royal St. The decision to open the facility with Schneider's photos was apt. since both the gallery and the pictures court popular taste while maintaining exacting standards.
As ''mille-fleurs'' suggests, Schneider's subjects are flowers, mostly of the botanical variety but sometimes also beautiful women. The subjects and her treatment of them - with delicacy. sensuousness and grace - makes the photographs fine-tuned expressions not just of a feminine but of a Southern feminine sensibility.
To create the photos. Schneider uses a 35mm format to produce black-and-white negatives, from which she prints images as large as 26 by 30 inches. Enlarging the images gives them a slightly grainy quality, the sensuousness of which is enhanced by applications of transparent color in luminous hues.
Some noteworthy pictures are
Rose Petals, in which the pink petals of the title are spangled with drops of dew, and Callas III, in which the vertical ribs of the blossoms are visible. Perhaps the sexiest picture is the semi-abstract Dappled Roses II, in which blossoms and petals are patterned with checks of light in different intensities, filtered through a screen.
Schneider, a former Times-Picayune employee, moved in 1988 to New York. There, she found an appreciative audience for her art, and many commercial jobs. No starving artist, Schneider demonstrates the tenacity of Southern women in the commissions she obtained from book publishers, recording companies and other venues. among them Random House, Simon & Schuster, Sony (CBS) Records and Victoria magazine.
As Schneider balances art and the market, so A Gallery for Fine Photography has enjoyed remarkable success on Royal Street. Purveyor of first-rate classic and contemporary photographs, the gallery is a class act on a street filled with emporia hawking gewgaws.
And not only has A Gallery or Fine Photography survived - it is flourishing. The new facility, an 1830s townhouse encompassing some 7,000 square feet, is twice the size of the former facility at 1313 Royal St. The bigger premises include two large exhibition spaces, several private viewing rooms, spaces for packing and shipping and a guest apartment for visiting photographers.