When I get special permission to shoot in museums, I take advantage of it. I’ve been in some situations — even on press trips specifically arranged for journalists — where photography was not allowed and note-taking was even banned. As a photographer, that kind of tour is of no use to me. I could enjoy myself as a tourist but as a business person, if I’m not walking out with images on my card, there was no point in my being there. I can tell when the point has really been lost when the museum’s PR person tells me that images are available for free from their office. That’s fine if I’m writing a story on their museum — at least I’d have some way to illustrate it — but I’m a photographer. I make my living by licensing my own images. Knowing that they have images available for free doesn’t really help me. Actually, it doesn’t really help them either as more major publications won’t want to use free images from a PR department because they want something unique and not the same photos that are appearing in every other magazine.

The three photos above came from the Grassi Museum in Leipzig where I was allowed to shoot by special permission. No flash, but that’s fine. I can understand them wanting to limit damage to the artifacts. Thank you, Grassi Museum, for understanding why I was there and seeing the benefit of having more images of your collection available to publishers. I hope that every image I get published sends people through your doors.