More room for photography (* updated)

Invited guests streamed up to the Getty last night for the debut of "Where We Live: Photographs of America," a milestone exhibition of contemporary images donated by Village Roadshow Pictures chairman Bruce Berman and his wife Nancy. Most of the photographers were on hand, but the real star of the show is the Getty's new 7,000-square-foot Center for Photographs. Museum director Michael Brand told the gathering of several hundred that approving the new space was his first major decision at the Getty. All those empty walls will allow for major showings from the museum's massive and significant photography collection. Noted photojournalist Mary Ellen Mark was in the house for a separate show, "Public Faces/Private Spaces," that opened in the old smaller photo gallery upstairs from the new space. Shocker from the notes: Tiny, the teenaged Seattle prostitute photographed in 1983 in one of Mark's most famous images (and featured in the film Streetwise), now has nine children of her own.

* Wednesday: Christopher Knight's LAT review, plus
Getty Research Institute director Thomas Crow leaves for NYU.

Trudy in Annie's Sunflower Maze by Sheron Rupp/The Getty Museum
Tiny in Halloween Costume Blowing Bubble by Mary Ellen Mark