Major Museums Start Banning Selfie Sticks

An anonymous reader shares these articles about museums banning the dreaded selfie stick. "Selfie sticks, the logical 'extension' of an already irksome activity, were recently banned in Premier League soccer stadiums. Now museums around the world are starting to do the same over worries of accidental damage to artwork. The Smithsonian barred their use effective last week as a 'preventative measure to protect visitors and museum objects,' especially on crowded days. Meanwhile, a formal ban is pending at Versailles palace and Centre Pompidou in France, and visitors are now being told to stow their sticks by guards at the Louvre. Both Pompidou and the Louvre will continue to allow regular photography and selfies."

Comments

Sure about the Louvre?

[Deadstick]

On my visits there, I remember signs prohibiting photography...not that anybody paid any attention to them.

It's been a while...maybe it was just flash photography.

Re:Sure about the Louvre?

[xanthines-R-yummy]

For museums in general, it depends on the exhibit and whether or not the works have been copyrighted. If so, no photography of any kind is allowed. For the Louvre, it seems like most exhibits should allow photography, although not necessarily flash. Even so, it seems like flash photography may not harm paintings after all...

http://www.arthistorynews.com/...

Re:Sure about the Louvre?

[tnk1]

Harm to art or not, flash photography is also annoying. That is another reason for not allowing it in museums where people go to actually appreciate the artwork and would prefer to not be strobe lit all the time.

Re:Sure about the Louvre?

[beelsebob]

You realise that when you take a flash photo, the flash should not be pointing at the subject in all but the rarest cases, right?

There's only one type of flash photography that needs the flash to point forwards - that's front filling (where you use the flash to try to even out dim lighting close to the camera, and bright lighting in the distance, and which is typically used for landscape photos)

For pretty much all other cases, instead, you want to bounce the flash off a large surface, to diffuse the light. Otherwise, all you get is photos with a big white specular dot right in the centre.

This is why when you look at a professional flash, you'll note that it tilts in all axes, rather than simply pointing forwards, like the crappy flashes they put on consumer cameras to try and even out their poor ISO response.

Re:Sure about the Louvre?

[disposable60]

And how common is an aimable flash as a fraction of the number of cameras being carried by the general public these days? I believe I heard that the iPhone is the top-selling camera, beating sales of the big three (Nikon, Canon, Olympus) summed.

Good Luck

[coop247]

We visited the Sistene Chapel and the tour stops right outside the room and the guide is very clear "Be quiet and absolutely no flash photography" and then you walk in and its absolutely packed with people being loud and taking flash pictures.

Re:Good Luck

[alen]

same with the statue of David. they should just make fake art for some of these museums that can be damaged by photos and save the real thing

Re:"Dreaded"?

[Anonymous Coward]

People who have to deal with a lot of them in moderately crowded spaces with multiple millions of dollars' worth of precious, irreplaceable, objects on display (objects that they are employed to protect), that's who.

Selfies...

[MitchDev]

Now there is an illness that needs a custom disease to wipe out those who take them...

Re:"Dreaded"?

[coolsnowmen]

It is, People take shittons more photos now than they used to. The reasons are obvious. Moden technology has enabled cheap photography- where it wasn't too long ago that you had to bring around extra equipment, rolls of film, then get them developed, or even just the fact that SD cards were limiting. Now I can take more photos than I Have time to review- but that is the problem. People are spending more time taking pictures and less time actually experiencing life because of the status, The Facebook status. People aren't making memory books, they are trying to show their friends they are cool and hip and whatever.

Selfies are just a logical extension....

[mark-t]

... of asking somebody else to take a picture of you at some location.

Some would argue that they have the added benefit of not requiring you to actually be in any way sociable with those around you.

Re:Selfies are just a logical extension....

[Wycliffe]

Your selfie stick is a lot less likely to run away with your phone than that oh-so-honest person you asked to take a picture of you in Italy.

The odds of another tourist stealing your camera when you ask them to take a picture is pretty much 0%.
The odds of a someone (especially a poor local) who asks YOU if you would them to take a picture of you
stealing your camerais pretty much 100%. This is the same advice I give my kids. If you get lost, don't
wait for someone to approach you, instead walk up to the first person you see and ask for help. Most people
are normal law abiding citizens, if you play the odds and pick someone randomly then your chances of getting
a criminal are very small. If instead you let them approach you then they are picking you which makes the
odds of them being a criminal considerably higher.

Re:Good.

[TheRaven64]

You've seen reproductions. At best, printed photographs. It's not the same thing.

Indeed. In comparison with how close you can get in the Louvre, the prints have a lot more discernible detail than the original...