Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
A Modest Proposal For Museums
23 April 2015
Seems like we've been hanging out at museums an awful lot lately. Crowded museums, we hasten to add. And crowded museums, we would argue, are a good thing. It's how exhibits bust blocks and how the museum business booms. But there's a problem.
We're talking about the invasion of museum exhibits by cameras.
Wait! We're first in line for the tomatoes. We love taking photos at museum exhibits. And we don't even mind (much) waiting for the klatch to move along before discretely snapping our shot. Sometimes with a smartphone, yes.
It seems like 98 percent of the exhibit attendees have a camera of some sort and are crowding around one or another painting or exhibit to get the shot with their smartphone or digicam or dSLR.
But, you know, enough is enough.
It seems like 98 percent of the exhibit attendees have a camera of some sort and are crowding around one or another painting or exhibit to get the shot with their smartphone or digicam or dSLR.
Some of them are considerate but most of them are oblivious to social customs of any kind.
They don't just take the shot and move on. They stand there and admire their work. And pull someone else over to admire it with them. And not just that shot but the 14 they took before.
So here's the modest proposal that does not involve the World Wrestling Federation or its subsidiaries and will win a significant pay raise for any museum administrator who implements it. Guaranteed.
Take a clue from public swimming pools and institute activity schedules.
Designate your least attended time as a Photo Free period. No smartphones, no digicams, no dSLRs, no photography of any kind permitted.
Just like, at the local public pool, there is a Lap Swim period or a Senior Swim time.
It would be fabulously popular. And it wouldn't prohibit anyone (like us) from taking pictures the rest of the time.
Imagine. Camera-less patrons would circulate around the exhibit admiring the artwork, reading the placards, listening to the audio tour without fighting for real estate with shoot-and-run amateur photographers hogging the view, blinding the people behind them with their bright screens and breathing the limited oxygen supply.
Business would be more brisk at the exhibit store, too, with patrons buying posters, books and postcards of their favorite images since they weren't able to photograph them.
And, for our part, we promise not to take any credit for this idea. So you can pretend it was your own idea, worthy of a significant bump in salary.
Keep in mind, we're talking specifically about special exhibitions. But the concept is applicable to the permanent collection, too. It's just that permanent collections don't attract the swarm of photographers a special exhibition does.
Sure, it's suspicious that someone like us, who loves to shoot in the galleries, would suggest this. You might wonder what, after all, is in it for us?
Art appreciation. Pure and simple.