Comments on: A Compromise for Museums Who Don't Allow Photography

By: Deborah Richmond

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 18:05:26 +0000

There is another solution. There is a company that sells stickers that you place over your camera phone. If the sticker is removed, it changes color. So museums can issue stickers to visitors, and ask to see their phones upon their exit. If the sticker has changed color, then the museum knows they took the sticker off to take pictures.
You can see them at http://picpatchlabel.com.

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By: Make It Easy for Others to Promote Your Art — Art Biz Blog

Wed, 05 May 2010 15:41:27 +0000

[…] Add a media room for bloggers. I wrote about this on my blog last week when I encouraged museums to do this in conjunction with their No Photography […]

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By: MattT

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 18:55:43 +0000

A truly forward-thinking museum would put QR codes (those checkerboard/bar code things) on their labels so someone with an iPhone or the like could scan it and instantly get a link to a page with info about the work, a lo-res version to use with a blog, and stuff like that. Still a bit too 21st century for most museums, though, I’m afraid.

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By: Katherine Tyrrell

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:30:52 +0000

Alyson – I’m sure they shoudl. Trouble is they seem to have a problem with actually putting their Annual Reports on their wesites! 😉 That was when I started to ponder on the reasons why!
I’ll take a look at the Museum Directory and see what that says. Thanks

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By: Alyson Stanfield

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:01:54 +0000

Deni: Yes, photography can get in the way. I’d like to think that the people taking the photographs are mindful of others, but I know it’s not always the case.
Katherine: I think some museums might be embarrassed by their attendance numbers. I believe The Museum Directory publishes attendance and museums certainly have to list attendance on grant applications AND in their annual reports. Most museums are public trusts and I’m sure these figures are available somewhere.

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By: parisbreakfast

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 19:16:09 +0000

I totally agree museums should become more savvy to the real world out there. The internet is the best museum there is IMO.
I think flash is unbearable ANYWHERE and there’s almost no need for it with a decent digital camera unless at night or a fashion show.Everyone is using their cells anyway to shoot this and that anyway, so why not adjust and bend.

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By: Katherine Tyrrell

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:50:46 +0000

Alyson – excellent post – I shall be sending you visitors!
Apart from the media room, I’ve been expounding on all these topics direct to the museums and their press people. I’ve highlighted how the return for allowing people to photograph could be enormous. There’s no need whatsoever to charge bloggers so long as they only use low res images on their blog.
It’s worth noting that an increasing number of museums are now participating in the scheme on Flickr where people images are being put online. A number of people are also participating with the Wikipedia scheme where ordinary people go in an photograph works in museums so that images can be put online with creative commons licences for anybody to use.
There’s one issue which is relevant and that’s the loan exhibition. A number of places won’t allow photography when they’ve assembled a lot of paintings from private collections. I’m not happy but I sort of understand that one. I’d rather see the work in person even if I can’t photograph it then not at all,
Incidentally, I’ve now got an information site about the Top 10 art galleries and museums in the world. It’s interesting how many of them (eg Louvre, Musee d’Orsay) have no problems with photography – so long as it’s not flash. What I did notice when i was going through the annual number of visitors was that a number of the American museums are very coy about their annual visitor numbers – and I wonder why that is? Maybe there aren’t enough people who know what’s inside?
One of the very nice things about having written exhibition reviews for a long while now is that I now get invited to the press previews for major exhibitions and get to take photographs of the paintings myself. Then I end up writing blog posts and showing people work which isn’t on the internet anywhere else – like today which is all about Van Gogh and the orchards and blossom in Provence!

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By: Sari Grove

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:18:22 +0000

P.S.
http://www.carfacontario.ca/~carfacon/resources here is a link to some advisory notes from Carfac Ontario about copyright & images…
& just for fun, if you didn’t know, I’d rather be in the studio, is listed in Carfac’s Amazon bookstore & the link comes directly from their website…
http://astore.amazon.ca/carfacontario-20/detail/0974272582
(The iCopyright link is in my previous post…really worth taking a look at for artists who want to put a linked watermark on internet images they might want to get money for…or even just the etiquette of people asking permission…)
oh heck here is that link again- http://license.icopyright.net/creator/tag.act?tag=grovecanada

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By: deni

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:23:43 +0000

as a visitor to museums, to be honest i find people taking photos a distraction and at times unpleasant. i have to stop looking at what i am viewing and then worry about the photographer… am i in the way? what are they doing? i guess it sounds selfish, but it is like i am being forced to be aware of them when i want to be aware of the art i have gone to look at. i realize bloggers and journalist see this as an opportunity to help museums, and i agree in helping the museums be promoted like that. the media room is a good idea i think, or having a web kit for people. you know though, if i were in a bloggers shoes though, i would want a candid photo to make it more “real.” that’s just me putting myself in your shoes. do you think that is going to satisfy them, really?

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By: Matthew Scarlett

Thu, 01 Apr 2010 13:04:46 +0000

As I was taking a photo, as part of documentation of the trip fro my degree, I was asked not to. I responded “The artist has been dead for 20 years, I’m sure he doesn’t mind!” to which the gentlemen walked away.
However such zealous behaviour was the basis for my Uni project, in which I gave a number of reasons why certain people should have ‘No Admittance’ to the gallery!
http://scarlettsart.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/text-narrative-installation-by-matthew-scarlett/

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