People’s desire to post photographs online is meaning rules are having to change about taking pictures in art galleries, says Carolina A. Miranda.
It’s a scene that plays itself out hundreds of times a day in American museums: a mother and her fidgety teenage daughter stand before a famous painting—in this case, Caravaggio’s The Toothpuller, from the early 17th century. The mom pulls out a cell phone and poses her daughter in front of the work, a funny-grotesque image of a smirking dentist performing an extraction. As she frames the shot, a guard steps forward. “No photos,” he says. The woman apologizes. She and her daughter slip out of the room and continue on to the next gallery.
It’s a scene that plays itself out hundreds of times a day in American museums: a mother and her fidgety teenage daughter stand before a famous painting—in this case, Caravaggio’s The Toothpuller, from the early 17th century. The mom pulls out a cell phone and poses her daughter in front of the work, a funny-grotesque image of a smirking dentist performing an extraction. As she frames the shot, a guard steps forward. “No photos,” he says. The woman apologizes. She and her daughter slip out of the room and continue on to the next gallery.