I agree with Maitai & the others who think selective photos of art & food can be a good thing.

That does NOT mean standing in front of an art work with your sodding selfie stick for minutes on end of while you stage the perfect shot of yourself!

Pros: A quick snap of selected pieces posted on social media can increase exposure for the exhibition or restaurant.

Not all artworks are available as postcards, as noted above by someone else.

Not everyone can visit the every exhibition & not the very exhibition is on the internet. it’s a nice way for people to share in the experience.

I have a friend who is a great art fan, but he can’t stand long enough to get around art galleries these days. It brings both of us joy, when I can show & tell him about exhibitions I’ve seen.

And lastly - it’s a very nice way to remember trips. Remember trips?

As for selfie sticks - I think they should be used as suppositories on any user who blocks others’ path or view.

Seriously, there are museums that allow selfie sticks?

If crowding is a problem they could capacity control to a degree by selling timed tickets. And charge a photography fee on top of admission.

Not everything that touches any person is in a postcard or photo book nor do I want to keep all of that paper. And I take food photos too.

I disagree.
i would avoid an HOA situation on principle. I hate rules which encourage conformity whether or not i want personally to paint my house magenta or grow a particular plant in my yard.

Was this thread topped by spammers or was Maitai sucked into the suggested thread section? It’s always getting me. 😹

it’d be nice if museums actually sold a postcard of every piece of art. They don’t. I do buy postcards when sold, but usually I have to take pictures of more obscure pieces that particularly strike me as wonderful.

as for timed entry, I think it hurts more than helps. You’ll get giant tour groups who want to see one thing, and then everyone else will be screwed. For example, I enjoy the Egyptian section at the Met, but I love the Met in general. If the Egyptian section is packed to the gills by bored families, I can be just as happy in another (blissfully empty) exhibit. Louvre is the same way.

i will say I’d love it if they banned cameras in the Vatican, but there, the true problem is not the cameras. The problem is the utterly insane tour groups. I saw a lot of Chinese tourists taking pictures of stuff for no discernible reason. Really strange experience.

Ah to be faced with crowds of selfie takers...

Ah, the good old days! It sounds like ancient history now.

"Was this thread topped by spammers or was Maitai sucked into the suggested thread section? It’s always getting me."

Neither. I was searching for something (what I was searching for is gone due to my incredibly terrible attention span) and this thread appeared for some reason, and since we tale a lot of photos it caught my interest.. I'd go on, but I have to take a photo of my scrambled eggs

Funny! Glad you found this thread.

Given a choice I'd opt for reduced crowds in museums, but I realize not really my choice to make for the blockbuster shows. We carry small binoculars so we can stand back and still get a good look at the artwork.

Here's the last museum photo of the year for me, March 13, as the year's surreal events were in unfolding rapidly.

OK, so you can't figure out why somebody is taking a picture of something. It happens. Everybody is different. Accept that. Yeah, I know people can be a PITA but still...

okay, let me put this a different way. huge groups of Chinese tourists. Several with expensive cameras. Tour guide stops, and points at stuff—painting, safety sign, brickwork, it does not matter—tourists snap photos frantically of every object pointed out, often by holding the camera over their heads, and traipse onward. I’m not criticizing it, I take pictures of weird stuff all the time. If it brings them pleasure, great. I just found it funny and puzzling. Scene could’ve come out of a movie, probably a satirical tourist comedy.

I think selfies should be banned everywhere except in the privacy of your own home.

Going a bit far perhaps. My DIL takes selfies on horseback, and I like seeing them. She isn't blocking anyone's view or annoying anyone other than the horse, and my son on the bike nearby.

I do get frustrated with, I assume Chinese, tourists who insist on taking photos of each other in front of a building or view, not just a quick snap but lots of poses then the next one and the next one take up poses, making it impossible to appreciate the scenery or get your own photo.

Hopefully next year you can all rant again about them, more likely 2022 .

Just a reminder that childrenses are often visitors at museums and we should be encouraging them to process their experience there in every way that they may want. Sketch--check. Journal--check. Film--check. Selfie--check, I guess.
Selfies aside, it blew our minds last fall in Albi, France, to see a group of grade threes (i.e. 8 yr olds) with their teacher taking a tour through the local Toulouse Lautrec Museum. They seemed a bit too young still to appreciate the art. Perhaps it was a good illustration of cultural differences across an ocean?

Won't ever forget our first sighting of selfie-culture. It was on Santorini and I could not believe my eyes-- was absolutely shocked.

I am done. The... wait, let me straighten my hair.....post.

I don’t know if it’s that much of a cultural difference. I had one particular teacher in grade school who was amazing—field trips were hard but fun work, and we wanted to work. Same teacher had composting bins full of worms and ran the school recycling program—kids actually squabbled over the “honor” of working!

I also think that serious museum goers, regardless of nationality, tend to introduce their kids really young to museums, and those kids are often really well behaved. I love to see kids at museums really getting into it—I’ve met little kids who are willing to tell me all about mummified cats, or sharks, for example. It’s parenting, that’s all. My parents weren’t into museums, but my family loved dining out at fancy places. Some of my best memories are of wearing a new Christmas dress and ordering a Shirley temple🤣

something similar is happening with masks. A lot of my more conservative acquaintances claim young kids can’t wear masks. Yet I see really small kids wear them around town all the time, because it’s a parental expectation.

OP Ibobi,
An irony about this topic is that often, the lighting inside museums is not conducive to the best quality shots. Factor in also: no tripod allowed, no natural light, glass/plastic showcasing. For example a year ago, I took some shots at our newish Agha Khan museum's Persian displays. Epic fail. Best parts of that visit after its interesting contents, were the exterior ground's black marble surfaces reflecting the sunset, plus the VG quality, once-a-week Persian cafe dinner on the first floor.

We have for years, become mentally-conditioned to lower our photographic expectations inside museums. Almost a waste of time. Far better to enjoy them just for their contents. Some museums also feature singles get-togethers, say on Friday nights, a great idea for those unattached.

Related: a pal's family was so put off last year by the hordes of Chinese tourists crowding and shoving them with their Go-Pro sticks in pretty Hallstadt, Austria, that their elderly dad apparently shouted, "ENOUGH! If one more of you hits me with their selfie-stick, then there's gonna be trouble!"

I am done. The stick.

This thread still makes me laugh.

A FB memory popped up, referencing this thread -

"Yes, I sat for an hour, just soaking it all in.
Yes, I took a selfie as I left.

I'm a criminal, per Fodors."

LOL

Not much changes in Fodorville.

Then I end up with a guard or if it's the Vatican a priest wagging his finger at me.

Enforce the no backpack rule. Selfie sticks are bad. Backpacks are worse.

https://flic.kr/p/yS1wmM

agreed!!!!!!!!

Agreed. AJP describes the situation very well: 'The documentation of having been there'. Says more about the selfie-taker than they themselves might realize.
Once chanced across a young Boston couple's blog about their time on Santorini. She was posed like a bouncy model in every. single. shot. Nuthin' wrong with that for their private collection of course, but for a public blog it felt like the epitome of 'NYAH-NYAH LOOKATME LOOKATME!'
I added a response comment to their blog fotos, about how they might want to check out 'Cafe Narcissus' (fictional) next time that they visited the isle.

They thanked me for the tip.

i am done. The smug.

For many it's actually a business.

There are many "travel bloggers" who travel the world and photograph themselves in famous settings. These aren't just people holding up selfie sticks. They're typically young attractive women, who put on nice outfits, have hair and makeup done and then have their boyfriends or professional photographers take pictures and videos of them, not with phone cameras but expensive gear. Then they have Youtube channels and lots of Instagram followers.

I was in Murano last year and saw a couple taking pictures by the colorful houses -- maybe it was one of the other islands. She was dressed up for a hot summer day and he was going around with a big camera, maybe had lighting as well.