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Category: PhotoFiles

Museum Photography: Examples from Three Countries (UK, USA, and Russia)

How do museums regulate permissions for museum photography, and is there a conflict between personal photos and official museum merchandise?

museum-photography
Industrial Gallery, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery (@Julia Shuvalova, 2008)

In the first week of December I went to Birmingham, and one my destinations was the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery that houses the works of some leading Pre-Raphaelites. Taught by experience, I asked about museum photography. Yes, I had to fill out the form again, but this time the rules were set out in more detail, although once more there is a clause or two that may potentially be difficult to interpret even for the staff themselves:

1. Any copyrights (including publication rights) created in the photographic materials produced under the conditions stated below are reassigned to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

2. Any photography is for personal reference only. No permission for any reproduction rights of any kind is granted or may be assumed. Permission for reproduction rights should be applied for, in writing, to the Picture Library. Each case will be evaluated independently.

3. Any work, which is protected by the artists’ copyright, may not be photographed without the permission of the copyright holder.

4. Any works on loan, including temporary exhibitions, may not be photographed.

5. Flash photography is permitted unless otherwise specified.

6. The use of professional photographic equipment is prohibited. Tripods and monopods may not be used under any circumstances.

7. Video cameras or camcorders may not be used under any circumstances. Filming is prohibited.

Fair enough, reading these rules may put an intrepid visitor off taking pictures in the gallery altogether. However, the first two points just further reinforce what I have highlighted in the previous post on the question of reproduction. The problem is seemingly not only about a picture’s commercial use, but about the multiplicity of such uses. Naturally, if the photo is included in a book, it will be reproduced as many time as the book. For this, it is essential to apply for a permission to a museum.

Regarding the 3rd point, my feeling is that this needs to be discussed with the copyright holder before their work actually gets to be displayed. This is something that many professional artists’ and photographers’ websites tend to lose the sight of. By creating a website and making it public, they by default agree that this information can be shared. It is the same as with the printed word: if it was printed, you cannot stop people from quoting it. This is not to say that their work can be reproduced for commercial purposes by other people, but this should mean that a blogger may wish to not only write about them and give a link to their website, but also to include an image in the post, to illustrate why it would be good to visit the website at all.

Likewise, when an artist is displaying their work at the museum or gallery where photography is generally permitted, they have to be aware that a visitor can upload a taken photo online. It makes every sense to restrict this, on the one hand; but, on the other hand, the world has grown bigger with the Internet, and this potentially means that artists, especially young, may find it more and more difficult to compete with other artists and to assert themselves in the world. Social Media tools, and particularly photosharing, will facilitate this to an extent.

With loaned works and temporary exhibitions, I feel the galleries would need to spare some resources to clearly display the permission signs in such spaces of the gallery. As more and more often galleries intercept the regular display with a temporary exhibition, it is difficult for a visitor to understand where a photography permission ends and where it resumes again.

Regarding the specialist photography permission, this is a good point and the one that I think can be reinforced to avoid the taken photos being reproduced to a commercial end. This is how the Brooklyn Museum defines their stance on photography in the gallery:

Photography and videography are allowed in the Museum so long as the images are taken using existing light only (no flash) and are for personal, non-commercial use. Photography and videography are often restricted in special exhibition galleries.

Add to this also that many paintings are displayed under the glass, hence the photographic image of a painting in the gallery space can be far from ideal for reproduction.

A different take on photography and videography in the museum comes from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. As you need to purchase tickets to view the collection, you can also purchase a permission to make photos or videos in the museum. The website explains that there are warning pictograms in the halls where it is not permitted to take photos or to use flash. I did use this permission once myself in 2002, and this was great to show the museum to my parents who happened to have never visited the Hermitage.

The question rises, of course: why would I film, and not buy a video cassette or a DVD? Well, we all count our pennies, and on my memory even 6 years ago it was cheaper to pay for a photography pass rather than to buy a DVD set. I have been taking a notice of what people photograph and film, and I have never seen any of them making a complete record of the collection. If any of the readers have been to the Hermitage, they vividly imagine the sheer grandeur of the place: you would not know what to photograph because there is too much to see, and all too splendid! They say it takes 5 hours to quickly run through the entire Hermitage (i.e. only stopping at a few paintings), so imagine the weight of this on your photo- or videocamera. But what the Hermitage achieving with this is very valuable. On the one hand, they allow people to create a personal record of a visit to this art depository, a historic monument, and one of the most beautiful sights in the world altogether. On the other hand, by asking for a small fee for a photography permit they also bring in money to the museum.

More on Photography and Blogs and Social Media

More on Photography in Museum: The Question of Reproduction

Photography in museum: the conflict of copyright and “personal use”. What museums can do to protect their collections.

photography in museums
Visitors taking photos at the John Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (@Julia Shuvalova, 2008)

It looks like more and more art depositories are beginning to ask visitors to fill in a photography in museum permission form. I do think that this is likely to be requested in a smaller gallery rather than in a big one. Imagine the huge queue of tourists at the British Museum, all filling out permission forms…

As I stated before, I do not see any problem with restricting photography in museum at the special exhibitions, and then there is a tricky situation with the works of art by contemporary artists, as not only is there a “regular” sort of copyright which we all acquire by virtue of producing a work of art, but there is also a 70-years copyright restriction. On the other hand, those works of art can often be found online anyway, so the first question is whether the artist and the art depository by restricting the permission actually end up pushing away the benefits of being directly credited in the image?

Another problem is how to define the concept of “reproduction”. Indeed, if I take a photo of a painting (sculpture, photograph by the like of Man Ray, etc), I am effectively “reproducing” it. Yet again, there are so many reproductions of these works of art on the Internet, and services like AllPosters.com not only provide links to a large number of online images, they also produce quality prints. I never ordered any posters from the mentioned site or others, but it would certainly be interesting to leverage the number of prints bought by those who visited, say, the National Gallery shop online or in person, and the number of prints bought through a poster-making website.

I must admit I never looked into the relationship between AllPosters.com and any of the art depositories, whose works they print: perhaps, there is a sale commission agreement, or some such. Whatever is the answer, this is clearly the case of an image being reproduced for commercial purposes. How is this different from uploading a photo to a blog or to Flickr? As far as Flickr goes, this is currently a non-commercial service, so “reproducing” an image there should not be constituted as a commercial move.

Uploading a photo to a blog can be more complicated to an extent, if the publisher uses AdSense. My personal view, however, going off the fact that many of the images are available online via different resources, is that if the publisher intends to earn their income by “reproducing” the works of art on their blog, there is little need for them to visit a museum and twist the brains over photography permission. They can find very many images on the web, or they can scan “reproductions” from a book.

Two things may be kept in mind. First, art depositories need to assume that people who do fill out a photography permission form may be intending to upload photos to the web: this constitutes the “personal use” for them. This intention cannot be denied simply because photosharing services are one of the most powerful communicative tools online at the moment, and it would be a pity to see the depository restricting this. Rather, a depository should have the means to see where people upload photos taken in the depository, and how these are being used. The question of an image credit is usually not disputed by the online community, but there is nothing wrong about reinforcing it.

And the second thing is that an art depository that asks for a photography in museum permission form to be filled in, can in fact include in it a question about how the visitor is planning on using the photo. Better yet, visitors can be asked to apply for a permission online, and if they are an online publisher (i.e. blogger or website owner), the depository will be able to evaluate the resource prior to giving a consent to photography. Needless to say, such requirement would have to be very clearly displayed on the website or in the gallery.

More on Photography and Blogs and Social Media

Birmingham – The City of 2009?

Liverpool has been the European capital of culture in 2008. But astrologically, the year 2008 was the year of Rat. I never actually checked if any world city has had a rat as its symbol. Having visited Birmingham recently for the first time, and seen this lovely sculpture at the Bull Ring Shopping Centre, I think I have found my symbol (and definitely a city to come back to) for the year ahead.

You see, back in Russia I have got a collection of soft toys, all in the guise of one or another character of the Chinese calendar. There is a pretty pair of Sheep, a faithfully looking Dog, an impressively pinky Pig, and a very old and blind Lion, among others (the Lion is the same age as me, and has lost both his green eyes to the Time).

I don’t have this collection with me now, and generally I have done well without it all this time. However, 2008 being a lean year and not entirely enjoyable one for me, I am hoping to brace myself well for 2009 with the help of this ox that looks very determined. Instead of drinking potions offered by MacCartney and Jackson in their famous video, I will look at this photo in the hope that the sculpture will give me “the strength of a raging bull”.

…I can just hear Sir Paul pronouncing “the strength of a raging bull” in that video. What? You don’t know which one?? Oh don’t say, say, say!..

A Tiramisu Expert, or A Dinner at Villagio

Villaggio - Tiramisu Yes, I think I am becoming a tiramisu expert. I love this dessert so much that whenever I visit an Italian restaurant I order it. And even if I am tempted to order something else, I still see myself ordering a tiramisu. Why? Why does Art influence us? Nobody can explain, and such is also the mystery of tiramisu. To be indulgent and delicious, it has to awaken the sublest senses of your tongue, it has to please the eye, and above all, it has to melt in your mouth, leaving you wanting more. Having once had two tiramisus, I now try to bridle my seemingly well-developed gastronomic faculties. But nothing can stop us from enjoying Art, especially when it is the art of making a perfect tiramisu.

I have just found out, in fact, that tiramisu as a “standard” recipe is not too old, and it may even be younger than yours truly. The Washington Post 2007 article on the trail of tiramisu tries to age the recipe by dating it back to the First World War, but the Italian authors claim that the first documented mentions of this recipe appear possibly in the 1970s, but most probably already in the 1980s. At any rate, the story of this layered cake still seems to be in the making, and the good testimony to that are the numerous reverberations on the standard recipe theme. There is a traditional recipe from Heston Blumenthal @ The Times Online; then there is a Lemon Tiramisu from the BBC Recipes… and then is a Beeramisu, an intriguing twist on the traditional recipe, found at 101 Cookbooks. If you want to know my opinion, I’d go with Beeramisu: not only is it still quite new, but there is also a good chance to try and use some of those continental beers that you can buy at a Christmas Market. So, instead of drinking those beers from plastic glasses in the cold, see if you can buy enough to cook a beeramisu at home.

And… back to our sheep. Villaggio, the Italian restaurant in Manchester’s Canal Street, has long been recommended to me as a good place to eat, but I have only very recently visited it – to my great pleasure. Thanks to the regular clientele, the restaurant is getting by even during the credit crunch, although like many other venues in the Gay Village it has felt the impact. The good news is that the crunch did not seem to have impacted the quality of food. The food (without drinks, but including a dessert) is likely to be about £20, to which you can add a glass or a bottle of wine, and a liquer coffee. I will not go into more detail on what I had at Villaggio, because you can see and read short descriptions from the menu in Villaggio’s Flickr set. The venue is located on two floors, and on the ground floor you are to be seated either in a compact bar area, or in a trendy lounge, entertained by modern music and colour lighting.

Most importanly, I had a delicious tiramisu there. With a brandy coffee. Recommended.

 

Birmingham – Mr Fish at the Indoor Market

OK, this isn’t the most regular image from me, but I admit, this was the first time on my memory that I came face to face with the game (poultry, that is). I was impressed, although I couldn’t find enough courage to photograph a dead goose that hang at the corner, its severed head being wrapped up in a cellophane bag, resting on the stall’s surface. Apart from a plenty of people on Saturday’s afternoon, this was one of the biggest impressions of visiting Birmingham.

 

The Theatre of Fashion Photography (On Eric Traore)

This video is fairly short but serves well to introduce both the Watches supplement to the 2002 Vogue Russia, and the work of Eric Traoré. What I noticed recently, going through different fashion and photographers’ websites, is that in a bid to protect their content from unfair use they build the site in such way that it doesn’t allow you to save the photo off the page. As much as I understand this, some rethinking should be made, in my opinion, if only to prevent the re-distribution of content in the form of screen grabs. A gallery of images for public use, as I see it, will not only enrich the website, allowing for a fair doze of social bookmarking and sharing options, but will also assist at distributing the name of the brand or artist.

In case with Eric Traoré, there is a [very short] introduction to his work at LifeLounge with a gallery of public images. Traoré’s style is distinct, and as you will be able to see at his website he is often concerned with the unusual. This may not sound like a particularly innovative thing for a beauty photographer to do, but Traoré does really succeed at unveiling the ‘other side’ of beauty. There is, for example, a stunning image of a Japanese-looking girl with beetles instead of eyes… that is, until you notice that her eyes are closed and beetles are painted on the eyelids. Traoré works productively with the make-up artists, infusing the art of photography with theatrical effects. This is manifestant in his session for Elle (Beauty 1 gallery on Eric’s website), where an observant viewer can find a couple of reverberations of the ‘Venus at the mirror’ theme, as well as a hint at Coco Chanel’s famous photo (left). At the same time, his work for Harper’s Bazaar (which has long been one of my favourite magazines; Beauty 2 gallery) explores both the glittering and vain quality of fashion. This finds its expression as in images (right), as in make-up: a woman’s eye dressed in peacock’s shades – how about that for a pun?

In his personal (i.e. less related to fashion) work, Traoré continues studying the unconventional beauty and the restrictions of the world (including that of fashion) on the very concept of beauty. The photos in Studies subgallery (Personal Work gallery) are a superb example of this. His use of ropes in the Studies series also brings to mind Man Ray’s Vénus Restaurée and Blanc et Noir (left and right, respectively). A short article at Incubus Choice gives a summary of the series. The notions of insecurity, restriction and movement are further explored in the black-and-white NYC series: people and cars that drift or move chaotically between the sky-scrapers, the odd blazing ray of sun that gets in the picture, the ghostly sfumato-esque atmosphere. The buildings and objects are little more secure than people: the reclining skyline and streetlamps seem to be supported by the same effort than keeps upholding the Pisan tower. Traoré’s New York strangely reminded me of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow. The sense of restriction and the Gothic feel reach the climax in the photo of the tree branches. The picture at once reminds of the intricate imagery of the medieval manuscripts, as well as of the slender Gothic architecture – but the twisted bodies of the trees hint at the lack of freedom and at the same time call to remember the Mannerist painters’ figures and slim silhouettes of today’s fashion models.

Eric Traoré’s website.

Italy: Bloggers, Internet, and the Government

Free Blogger

There are diverse and sundry initiatives happening across the English-speaking Internet with the help of blogs. Blog Action Day, various BlogCatalog appeals, Amnesty International… Add to this the rise of Social Media and Networking, which we have only recently witnessed in Manchester. Somewhere in the States the use of these social tools is even wider than in Britain, although there is a still a proportion of people who don’t know what a blog is or don’t have access to the Internet.

Well, if England can be considered the northern pinnacle of Europe, then Italy must be its southern counterpart, and as far as blogging and Internet are concerned, things could hardly be any more different. Beppe Grillo, a well-known Italian actor, comedian, activist, and a prolific blogger, has been closely following the Levi/Prodi law, renamed into Levi/Veltroni, thanks to the new clauses, and labelled the “blogger-killer“. According to the law, every blog is considered a publishing product and as such is the subject to the regulations relating to the crimes via the printed word; if the blog publishes Google AdSense or banners, the publisher may be taxed by the Tax Collecting Agency; and the publisher is required to register with the ROC (Registro degli Operatori di Comunicazioni), otherwise he or she will be considered a clandestine publisher and liable to financial sanctions and up to 2 years in prison.

As opposed to the state of things currently in Italy, Beppe much admires the success of Barack Obama’s campaign which has potently shown the power of the Internet. In the face of the States’ progress, “Italy has suddenly got old“. One of the comments on his blog regarding the “blogger-killer” law has also remarked:

“All the contrary, the British have a saying which is very fitting: ” The silence was defeaning “. It has a LOT OF relevance to them [the Italian Government – JD], and to their many financial friends and accomplices, exactly because the internet makes it possible for millions of people to find out the truth, and what is really happening, in spite of all their efforts to lobotomise people through the regime controlled media, so that they will never find out what really happens, and the real why, and so, it must be stopped, or censored, at all costs“.

What is perhaps the most surprising is that Italy isn’t at all Internet-savvy. “The Internet is what first announced Obama’s victory. 3,000 Italian towns out of about 8,000 are without ADSL. Worse than in Africa, but with the antiquated digital terrestrial“. I would perhaps argue with Beppe on this, because 3,000 out of 8,000 is actually not too bad, however… “The Country has been struck by a bad case of digital divide. Two different groupings have formed. One gets its information on the Net, while other gets its disinformation via the newspapers and the television“. Again, let’s not forget that the Internet can get one their fair share of misinformation, but at the same time the number of occasions when an average Internet user has orchestrated a significant change in the world of Media and Advertising is also well-known and impressive. Unfortunately, the digital divide illuminates the societal and educational divide, and this is much more difficult to tackle.

With the imminent drastic change (if not demise) of the traditional media – which in Italy are state-controlled – the attempt is being made by the Government to extend its control over what is currently not under the control, and this is the Internet. There are many questions to be raised (i.e. what about Social Media, podcasts and videoblogs? or does an Italian publisher need to register a .com domain with the ROC?), but this is perhaps a more problematic issue. The future of advertising and its revenue – and Beppe has already pinned this down – is at stake, and this is precisely what we see tackled in the infamous Levi/Veltroni law. Apart from all concerns about the freedom of speech which Levi/Veltroni will most certainly curtail, the fiscal nature of this law is also quite obvious.

However… The case of Italian sector of blogosphere rises an interesting problem. In the English-speaking world, bloggers are indeed the independent publishers. Sometimes they use their websites to earn money. Sometimes the websites are used to raise money. If so, is the repetition of the Italian case in Britain or America completely out of question?

The November National Holiday: From Revolution to Union

When I was little, on the 7th November my mother and I once went to see my gran’s sister. Back in 1980s, this day was celebrated as the day of the Great October Socialist Revolution. In the evening there were usually fireworks that people cheered. My mother and I stood at the bus stop when the fireworks began. Since childhood I’ve had a very loud voice for the festive occasions. I was enthusiastically shouting ‘hooray’ at the top of my lungs at every burst of fireworks when an elderly woman who happened to be waiting at the same bus stop turned to me and said: “Why do you scream so loud? You can lose your voice”. For one reason or another, she didn’t approve of my patriotism.

When 1990s came, the Revolution started to be treated with disdain. If you read chapter 4 of Zizek’s In Defense of Lost Causes, you’ll instantly understand what I’m about. It was impossible to ignore the whole event, like you can’t ignore the French Revolution, so the attempts were made to either condemn the event or to ‘apologise’ for it. Finally, the late Boris Yeltzin renamed the ‘Great October Revolution Day’ into ‘Day of Concord and Reconciliation’, thus inviting people of Russia to leave the conflict-bearing watershed behind and think ‘positively’.

But clearly that was still not enough. To quote Zizek again:

Days before the second round of the presidential elections in May 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy formulated the exorcism of the ghost of May 1968 as the true choice facing the electorate: “In this election, we should learn whether the inheritance of May 68 is to be perpetuated, or whether it should be liquidated once and for all. I want to turn the page of May 68”.

In what sounds like a precise analogy to Sarkozy’s statement, the Russian Government in 2004 has shifted the national holiday to 4th of November and called it the ‘Unity Day’. You see, there’d be no happiness yet the misfortune happened yet Russian history was rich and eventful enough to have something memorable, apart from Revolution, happening in November. Namely, it was the victory over the Polish intervent forces in 1612. Following the death of Boris Godunov in 1605, the so-called Time of Troubles, or Mutiny Time, and the Polish intervention had started and lasted more or less until 1618. One of the decisive victories over the Poles that shaped the future of the Polish presence in Moscovia was in November 1612. The Time of Troubles was marked not only by the Polish intervention, but also by civil war, and the Unity Day thus celebrates – and commemorates the example thereof – the unification of the country against the threat of foreign rule. In pre-Soviet times 4th of November also celebrated the day of the Kazan Icon of Our Lady, with whose help the Second Volunteer Army under Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky had stormed the Polish forces in Moscow’s Kitai-Gorod. The Kazan Cathedral in St. Peterburg was built by Paul I in honour of the icon, and the icon (or possibly its copy) was moved to the cathedral in 1811.

There seems to be a difference in intentions between the Russian Government and the French President, but it is likely to be only nominal. In truth, both countries are trying at all costs to annihilate the events that may disrupt either liberal or conservative status quo. And while there may be nothing wrong with this sort of tendency in general, in particular it highlights the attempt to veil the rupture or the real problem facing the society. Having said so, it is unclear if Sarkozy had much to offer to either the French electorate or the Government in exchange of the memory and experience of May’68. Russia’s case is potentially much more fecund, as the year 1613 saw the proclamation of Mikhail Romanov as the Russian tzar, thus giving the rise to the Romanov dynasty. I don’t suppose that Russia may one day see the Restoration of the monarchy. But one can certainly expect some kind of political continuity between the Russian leaders, and to judge by the comments from Russia, this is precisely what is happening.

Illustrations:

The Icon of Our Lady of Kazan
Ernest Lessner, Poles Surrender Moscow Kremlin to Prince Pozharsky in 1612.
The Kazan Cathedral in St. Petersburg (the photo I took in 1999, during my first visit to the city).
The New Izvestia 2005 report of the new holiday.

Laughter at the Time of Financial Crisis

Just to what extent can you take things seriously? There is certainly a limit to the amount of tears one can shed over a particular issue. In Moscow, to my knowledge, people aren’t being given credits from the banks. Even those whose application was approved are still waiting. Each day the bank issues a letter ordering to give or not to give the money. So far it has been “do not give” – and that for nearly two weeks, at least.

What to do in this situation? I recall a phrase from one romantic novel: “He laughed – the only thing that a normal man could do who was close to going mad“. Possibly, this is the reason for diverse and sundry posts in the Russian LiveJournal laughing off the influence of the crisis on one’s mental sanity. Some of them were even “bound” in a .pdf file, as the “Anti-crisis” book of funny quotes, jokes, short stories, pictures, and slogans. One of the pictures (photoshopped, incidentally) you can see on the left; the description says: “What Are the Pants Compared to Eternity?” And below are a few jokes that I translated.

John Smith, who plummeted from the 75th floor in Wall St, upon falling has bounced off the ground up to 10 metres, thus improving the result of his morning fall…

One banker calls another:
– So, old fellow, how are you doing?
– Good, good.
– … sorry, I dialled the wrong number.

The Minister of Finances has said that the citizens have nothing to fear about the crisis. They should have feared before; now it is too late.

The crisis has got me back on my feet! The bank confiscated my car because I couldn’t pay the credit.

A man comes to the bank for a consultation.
– I’d like to start a small business. What do I do?
– You should buy a big business and wait.

Two bosses talk:
– Listen, do you pay salaries to your employees?
– No.
– Neither do I. But do they still go to work?
– Yes.
– So do mine. Listen, maybe we demand payment for the entry to work?
One week later.
– So, did the paid entrance help you to get rid of them?
– No way! In order to save money, they come into work on Monday and live there till Friday.

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