Museums and reproduction fees

[mcbishop]

Here's something that will cause a few raised eyebrows and a general suspicion that Christmas may have come early. BoingBoing is reporting that the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (aka the V&A) is lifting reproduction fees on photos taken within the museum for academic purposes. For those who don't know, one of the things the V&A contains is one of the sets of casts of Trajan's Column.

Mike Bishop

[Praefectusclassis]

Wooohoo! Time for a trip to London.

[Kate Gilliver]

That woud be fantastic.

I remember visiting the V&A about my first weekend in London as a wide-eyed undergraduate (actually wide-eyed in terror from being in London after growing up in a small country town!), wandering into a gallery and saying to myself "bloody hell, that looks just like Trajan's Column!", before realising what it was.

Lets hope other museums follow suit.

[Jona Lendering]

Here's something that will cause a few raised eyebrows and a general suspicion that Christmas may have come early. BoingBoing is reporting that the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (aka the V&A) is lifting reproduction fees on photos taken within the museum for academic purposes.

I was there a couple of months ago and back then, there was no charge too.

[Jeroen Pelgrom]

BoingBoing.net ???

:roll:

[SvenLittkowski]

Another notification:

I am opening somewhen in the near future a database website for maritime archaeological purposes. A scientific website. There, all resources will be free for academic use.

We have already our own photos from tunisia, and some other archaeological locations!

The future website will be at:
http://Navis.TerraRomana.org

However, there are some issues with Firefox, it seems. Please send your experiences by PM to me. Thanks.

Sven

[Peroni]

If you intend to take photos of the casts of Trajan's Column, make sure that you have a good zoom lens! I tried with a standard 100mm lens and still couldn't get the clarity.

The casts are in two large sections, and there is no way to get close to the tops of the casts like stairs or an upper gallery floor. All pictures have to be taken at ground level unfortunately.

[Arahne]

28-300 should fit.

[Susanna]

Just to add to this topic:

there are a few museums that charge even the scientific use of finds and replicas they own (for my point of view, you cannot own something that you did not make yourself..."Himmelscheibe von Nebra"-Discussion, but I understand that museums need money badly nowadays).

F.e. some roman museums charged us for the use of their founds in a CD-booklet, even we were the photographers and its used in a scientific way. I understand that, but f.e. a fee of 300,- British Pounds for two pics was a little silly...

[Tarbicus]

The British Museum has had no problem with even the use of a flash and tripod, you don't even need to ask. At least that's what I was told by the very nice floor staff there, and not a single one has tried to stop me from using a flash. I think their greatest concern would be the possibility of causing an accident and damage to other members of the public and the displays.