After years of seeing "Please, No Photos of the Art" signs in every museum across the country over the years, you might find it interesting to hear that the bans have finally started disapearing, and even photo-taking promoted for the sake of social media advertising. The National Gallery has finally opened the floor to promoting photos by mobile and amateur photographers and encourage the idea to take photos of the art and post those images to social media platforms. This is a pretty big deal considering the stance on the issue for so long was very anti-photographs.
This particular example is not a new venture for museums (see The Met), though as some have opened up the idea to free wifi and social media accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for a couple years now. What's fascinating about this case is the fact that the National Gallery has stood by the their posted signs saying "no photography or mobile devices" for years. Living in a city that is populated city by museums and national monuments, second only to Washington DC, Indianapolis has also embraced the social media realm by allowing photos to be taken on all floors of each museum in the city. Once frowned upon, the action is now highly recommended with small signs with QR codes and hashtags to help the museums social media experts gain more ground with the younger audiences.
Though the transition to this new policy was soft at the National Museum the people still noticed. The museum does look to continue the ban on flash photography and tripods along with the obstruction of peoples view to the art.
Wi-Fi enables our visitors to access additional information about the Collection and our exhibitions whilst actually here in the Gallery, and also to interact with us more via social media.
Personally I have always enjoyed heading out for a weekend stop at the local museum to check out the art in quiet. Though, in recent years, I have found with the vast options in my city its become more fun to explore each location with friends and snap fun photos along the way for fun to share on Instagram. I had gotten into the habit of tagging and mentioning each museum when posting, even in 'non photo' locations and they have still liked and or shared my photos to their own pages. It has grown into the opportunity to connect and shoot with many of the local museums in the city as well. The power of social media amazes me and it continues to intertwine itself places I never thought it would.
Where have you seen social media play a role in changing the scope of something older like the National Gallery?
[via The Telegraph]
Something like, why they don't allow you to take photographs if they're photographing you
Never really understood the reasoning behind taking pictures of pictures anyways.
I visit musea quite often. And yes, I by a book afterwards. I can't produce the quality in those books without a tripod and a nice camera if I only take my phone with me.
But, if I look athe the largest museum in my country, the Rijksmuseum. They have thousands of nice paintings. But all the books they have are about the great paintings of Vermeer and Rembrandt and other great painters of the 17th century. I like them, but I can find enough of them on the internet.
They also have a couple of paintings from Adriaen Coorte. But they don't show them in the books you can buy. Or I have to buy for over 100 dollar worth of books (Remind you, I'm a photographer. Our kind normaly doesnt swim in money)
So I take a little photo with my phone. Shoot the little card beside it to. When I come home, I have a beautifull book with the greatest paintings of the museum and a lot of photos on my phone with the works I'm interessted in.
I think it's nice that they let you take pictures of art. It's not that you can produce quality to make anything to hang on your wall. Than you should buy a poster at the gift-shop....
It's great they are letting up on the photography bans. I never understood them in the first place - no flash I get, camera phones not so much. The gift shops don't usually have comprehensive books with their collections and very limited posters and prints, so if you like something you had better commit it to memory. People aren't going to stop going to museums if they have a small photograph of a painting - I would assume it would have the opposite effect.
The way some museums are becoming interactive is fantastic. Docents are boring (often inaccurate too, but if you correct them they get irritated) and on tours you can't hold up the group to look at an obscure piece no one seems to care about. Only so much information fits on those little cards. A QR code that goes to information about the piece and artist is a great idea. And what a great learning tool for kids. I've never understood why we try to keep art from the public eye instead of making it more available. A few years ago I remember Google trying to start an online art museum or something and it was shut down.
Here is one of my images made at the National gallery of Art in Washington, DC in March 2014. The NGA security guard offered to keep tabs on my photo bag while I was capturing Marion C, a French artist studying to be a copyist, as she was capturing Rembrandt.