Under what category does an art gallery file a vintage Austin A30 car, toy soldiers, or a confederate dollar bill that may or may not be real?And where would you park the Austin? In the storeroom?These are the types of questions that intern Paul Pegnato must face at the Masterworks Gallery, although admittedly his speciality is photography, not cars or toy soldiers.Mr Pegnato, an American, will hold a lecture and presentation today at Masterworks where the general public will have a chance to see some of the treasure he has been working with and ask any questions.He is the first Ryerson University Donald Dickinson Photographic Collection Management intern.He started his internship with Masterworks in September 2010. Mr Pegnato earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in photography from Arizona State University and found work within the internet industry.“I always had the idea that I would go back to the fine arts,” he said.And eventually, he did. He has recently completed a Master of Arts in photographic preservation and collections management at Ryerson.His role while at Masterworks is to create a detailed inventory and examination of all photographic and historic objects in the gallery’s collection there are thousands.Mr Pegnato has been working in the conservation room going through drawers and boxes.He has unearthed some veritable treasures, including several unique photographs possessing Bermuda historic and cultural value, as well as examples of historic photographic processes dating from the 19th century through contemporary photographic media.The overall objective is to structure a programme using the best custodial care and preservation procedures.Mr Pegnato is also working on a redesign of the photography database to help improve access to the photography collection.“In terms of quantity in the collection, we are talking several thousands of objects,” said Mr Pegnato. “I haven’t taken count of the documents yet. This is my second term of three months.“The first three I was doing an inventory and trying to figure it out. Now I am trying to organise things and re-house them so they are preserved properly.”Proper preservation might involve anything from restoring a withering old family album that had been left to Masterworks, to making sure that objects are stored in acid free, buffered boxes, or making sure that they are stored standing upright rather than horizontally.“Preservation is a big part of my job,” Mr Pegnato said.Mr Pegnato has naturally been fascinated by Masterworks’ extensive collection of photographs. “They range from the mid-1850s up until current times,” he said. “We have daguerreotypes, which were one of the first types of photographs.“This process started in the 1830s, but lasted for some years after, so they are not necessarily from the 1830s. The collection has just about every photographic process.“We even have palladium prints and platinum prints, ambrotypes and autochromes, an early colour photo process that started in the early 1900s.”By examining the detritus of Bermuda civilisation, maps, stamps, ship menus and old tourism posters, he is learning a lot about Bermuda, its culture and its families.He pulled open a drawer revealing a pile of aging family photo albums. “This, I call the bottomless pit,” he said. “There are many different family albums in here. Some are well-captioned and some aren’t at all.”He opened one album up. “There might still be people out there who can identify the people in these albums.“They are great because you see photographs of people at the beginning of the album as children and they are grown up at the end of the album.“There are albums from people on holiday or on ships. It is pretty fascinating stuff. We are hoping people can start saying, ‘I think that is my grandmother’.”His special interest is in early 19th century photographic images, so he is pretty good at identifying the different photography processes.“It is exciting to see all these different photo processes in one collection,” he said. “Plus what is neat is that everything I studied is relevant here from housing to research to the historical aspect, it is all here.”Mr Pegnato said staff at Masterworks were unaware or had forgotten they even had some of the items in the collection.Some of the items had been donated by the community, or purchased by staff.Sometimes people abroad sent them anything related to Bermuda that they found in rummage bins or antique shops.“The museum is still deciding what it wants to be,” said Mr Pegnato. “I don’t mean to sound egotistical, but I am here and pulling some of these things and showing them to [Masterworks’ creative director] Tom [Butterfield] he didn’t realise some of the things he had.“It makes people rethink it as a possible resource that could be used somewhat like an archive.“With the background I come from, I hope that it could be used that way. It would be good if people could call up and say I want to look at some old Trott photographs and Masterworks could accommodate that.”His home base is in Washington DC, the home of many famous museums such as the Smithsonian Institute. After his internship, his hope is to find work in one of the institutions, museums or archives in that area.“It is very competitive and there are not a lot of jobs out there,” said Mr Pegnato, “so this internship is about perfect for right now. It is a great position for coming out of the programme.”For a $15 fee the public is welcome to bring in old photo albums or pictures and Mr Pegnato can provide advice on the best way to store and preserve them.For more information telephone 236-2950 or visit www.bermudamasterworks.com.