We planned the trip for about two weeks now after driving past a certain art gallery for years now. It was not much for entry, about a US dollar per person (which was the wrong price as well, per the instruction on their price list - more about this below as well).
I got out of the car and took my camera out of my bag. As I always do...
As soon as I hit the shutter button, taking the photograph below, the security almost ran up to me telling me to immediately put away the camera, it was not allowed.
REMEMBER WE WERE IN THE PARKING LOT...
I put my camera away, I did not want to cause any trouble. It was very strange that I got asked to put away my camera this early. I know some places are against photographs, but never in my life have I experienced this...
It did not get better when we entered. I tried my luck again, asking if we could take photographs and they were so against it that we could not even take photographs with our cellphones. They told us we could take photographs of each other but with the cellphones not pointing to the artworks themselves.
A little side note, Wednesdays were discount days, and when walking out we saw the entrance fee we were supposed to pay, and they overcharged us by about 600%. This sounds like a lot, but as I said, we paid about 1 US dollar for entry which was not a lot, but on Wednesdays, it needed to be about 0.2 US dollars.
Anyways, once inside, a curator accompanied us. Not in the sense of a guided tour, but to watch over us so that we did not take photographs in private. The person acted like they looked at the art, but we felt watched the whole time.
I am trying to figure out why this was so bad, why could we not take photographs of the art? All of the art was for sale well beyond the budget of most South Africans, ranging from R10,000 (about 500 US dollars) to well over R300,000 (about 17,000 US dollars).
And, most of the art was submitted for a local art competition (one of the biggest in the country).
And the last thing, most of the art pieces are already on Instagram and the internet (see, for example, here the artist draws the work, but it looks like the artist herself could also not take a photograph of her work, only being photographed next to it.)
If the art is for sale, and the art is already photographed and on the internet, and we will never in a million years try and copy the work via a really bad quality photograph I took with my 20-year-old camera, what would be a reasonable reason why we were not allowed to take photographs?
I am so frustrated at the situation, because, in every gallery that I have been to, photographs were allowed. Some do not allow DSLR cameras, which I also do not understand. But I have never been in one that does not allow photographs, period.
Even the outside, we were not allowed to photograph the trees, the artworks outside in the public, or the road leading to the gallery...
Maybe I am in error, that photographing art is a big no, but this seems odd given that almost every gallery even allowed DSLR photographs.
I am baffled, but more frustrated (as a photographer). The lighting was perfect for amazing photographs inside of the gallery, and I really wanted to photograph this venue.
Anyways, rant over. Maybe I am in the wrong. What do you think, are we as photographers allowed to take photographs of art in art galleries and museums?
The rant consists of my frustrated words, inspired by the curators and management that do not allow something so common to us all in this hyper-digital age. The two photographs, which is deemed illegal to the gallery/museum was taken with my Nikon D300 and iPhone.