Boston Museum of Fine Arts | Engaging Places

*Sign at the entrance to the Albuquerque Museum in New Mexico.*

What Museum Photography Policies Reveal About Visitor Experiences

While examining visitor codes of conduct, I started noticing another kind of museum policy that is becoming more visible: photography policies. They appear on websites, ticketing pages, “Know Before You Go” guides, and signs in galleries, historic houses, gardens, and exhibitions. Like codes of conduct, photography policies have always existed in some form, but they now seem more detailed, more prominent, and more complicated.

At first glance, the question seems simple: can visitors take pictures? But museum photography policies reveal that this is no longer a yes-or-no issue. The better question is: what kind of photography, by whom, for what purpose, in what space, and with what effect on collections, staff, visitors, and the experience?

To explore this question, I reviewed photography rules embedded in dozens of visitor codes of conduct and visitor policy pages from museums and historic sites. This was not a scientific or comprehensive study. It was an initial scan of current practice to identify common patterns and management issues. I am not offering legal advice here; museums should consult an attorney on copyright, releases, privacy, and commercial use. My interest is in how these policies shape visitor experience and staff decision-making.

The broad trend is clear: casual, personal photography is increasingly welcomed, but excessive equipment and disruptive, staged, or commercial photography is increasingly controlled.

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The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, one of the great public museums established just after the Civil War, has recently opened “Art of the Americas,” a new wing filled with its outstanding collections of American fine and decorative arts. As some of you know, the Boston MFA underwent a controversial restructuring more than a decade ago, shifting from departments organized by media (e.g., paintings, ceramics, furniture) to geography (e.g., Europe, Asia, and America) and firing some longtime curators (including Jonathan Fairbanks, who created the American Decorative Arts and Sculpture department at the MFA). I’m assuming one of the results of this restructuring is “Art of the Americas.” This four-story exhibit consists of 53 galleries tracing the history of art from pre-Columbian to Modern periods for the continents of North and South America, so along with the expected Chippendale chairs and Copley portraits, there are Peruvian funerary urns and Acoma pots. It’s so large that it took me nearly three hours just to cruise through it at a walking pace and I didn’t make it to the fourth floor, which explored the 20th century.

Unlike most art museums, the exhibit mixes Continue reading →