Baker's Dozen: In the Museum (Complete)

Photo by Benjamin Kelley, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. "I’ve been photographing my daughter looking at art for a number of years now. She was newly four here, in 2015. This was taken at our local museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, with John White Alexander’s Isabella and the Pot of Basil."

Photo by Rich Barbara, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. "I had to set the camera down on a bench to keep the ISO fairly low. Was afraid they’d move before I got the shot but I figured when the man sat down on the floor I had a bit of time. Taken at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh with an Olympus E-M10 and a 25mm ƒ/1.8 lens."

Photo by Albano García, Buenos Aires, Argentina. "I took this photo a couple of months before your call for work at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes here in Buenos Aires. My daugher Margarita loves museums, but that day she'd had enough.  :-)  Shot with a Sony a6000 with 16–50mm kit zoom I bought from my dear friend Juan Buhler."

Photo by David Mackenzie, Bedford, New Hampshire, USA. "We were running late one day in Paris and decided to visit the Louvre about half an hour before closing. Given the short amount of time we had we headed directly for the Mona Lisa. When we turned the corner into the exhibit space we were met by this. A docent told me were lucky to arrive so late so that the crowd was much thinner than normal. At least nobody was taking a selfie."

...Except the guy in front just to the left of the painting. And maybe one guy on the opposite side, just to the left of the end of the DSLR lens. Hard to tell. —MJ.

Photo by Stelios Karouzakis, London, United Kingdom. "This is a picture I took in 2015 outside the British Museum in London, with my new to me then (secondhand) DSLR. I'd been shooting for years with nothing but a rangefinder and a 35mm so that was an all-new setup for me. I remember I was determined to get a picture I liked that day for no particular reason, just to please myself. I was paying particular attention to the sun. I like the soft light and the gestures of the children. I have it printed and framed in my living room."

This is a particular favorite of mine Stelios. —MJ

Photo by Leon Droby, Uxbridge, Massachusetts, USA. "Being a local, I usually go to this museum a couple of times a month. And no matter how many times I go, there’s always something interesting there. Taken at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts, with a Fujifilm X100F."

Photo by John Denniston, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. November 16th, 2018—A wall being painted in readiness for a new exhibition at the Equinox Gallery in Vancouver, B.C.

Why I liked this... —MJ

Photo by Sergio Bartelsman, Bogotá, Distrito Capital, Colombia.

Photo by Nick Van Zanten, Grand Haven, Michigan, USA. Shot with a Nikon D700, 1/250 at ƒ/4. "Two of the potential voters in Art Prize 2010. Launched in 2009 as an experiment, Art Prize was designed to be a bottom-up rather than top-down art contest. Offering the largest cash prize in the art world, the venue, downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan, was open to any artist. Any visitor could vote via the internet for their favorite piece. The experiment worked. ArtPrize has continued to grow and evolve."

Photo by Maggie Osterberg, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA. "This is in the pelagic pool viewing area at The Monterey Bay Aquarium and the odd fish you see is an Ocean Sunfish, or Mola Mola. The giant tank held a variety of fish and mid-sea invertebrates, including a young Great White Shark. What I love about this shot is that it reminds me of 'Mystery Science Theater 3000,' with phone-toting tourists standing in for Joel, Crow, and Tom Servo. The kids in the lower left, putting their hands on the glass are endearing and, if I’m honest, a little bit creepy."

In the submissions there were a number of creative departures from the conventional idea of a museum—an "old village" museum of historical structures (Ronny Nilsen), a permanently docked warship (Kristoffer Tripplaar), the exterior of an alternative museum on the streets of an old town (Ray Maines), even the interior of a huge freight elevator at SFMoMA (Saul Rosenfield).

Photo by Markus Fischer, Germany. "This is entitled 'Inside the Camera'—which is where it was created, inside the room-size camera obscura located in The Photographers' Gallery in Central London. Hope that passes for a museum…great place by the way."

Photo by Mark Hobson, Adirondack Mountains near Lake Placid, New York USA. "My grandson in the Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, Canada. Over the past year I have been 'converting' hundreds of my pictures into an 'old' snapshot format/look. The purpose is to amass a large body of 'snapshots' which I then place in POD (print on demand) photo books. My intent is to create legacy books which have the look and feel of the traditional/classic family photo album. Enough copies of each album/photo book are printed to distribute to immediate family members. In addition, I put 20–15 individual 5x5" prints into boxes and leave them around my house so family and visitors can handle and look at them."

As for the "good measure" 13th picture, it's humorous, but a little risqué too. I don't think it will offend anyone, but perhaps you should consider it NSFW. Therefore I'm hiding it behind this page break. Proceed if appropriate.

Photo by Richard Khanlian, Santa Fe, New Mexico. "I made this image in June 2015 at the 'Grounds for Sculpture' Garden and Museum near Princeton, New Jersey. It's a candid shot; I didn't know or pose the girls who were indulging their curiosity."

Finally, I apologize to everyone that it took me 856 days (!!!) to post this. No excuse for that.

Thank you to everyone who participated.

Mike

Product o' the Week:

Fingertip Pulse Oximeter. The link is from TOP to Amazon. This relates to health, not photography—it replaces one of the advanced functions on the latest Apple Watch. Takes your pulse and measures your blood oxygen. For heart monitoring, checking for COVID (low blood oxygen is an early warning sign) and slow heartbeat. I'm learning to correlate the way I feel with the readings. Works with iOS and Android. Nifty little device, super easy to use, and cheap.

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Bob Johnston [no relation —Ed.]: "I loved seeing these pictures. They are all excellent. Anyone who claims they have never 'lost' something in a computer obviously never used one."

Yann Pouiol: "I'm sad that I didn't make it to the chosen dozen, yet seeing my name on TOP after 10 years of daily visits feels like the sweetest silver medal! The quality of this selection is very high; this was a real treat to watch."

Comments

[Robert Roaldi]

I am not sure where I stand on why a 'white painting is art'. I have swung back and forth on it over time. I enjoy the conversations that curators and art appreciators have on the subject, have watched several on youtube, so thanks for this new (to me) one. Regardless of where the debate eventually ends up, which won't be known for a few hundred years, one thing I do enjoy is the art of gently poking fun at the ideas, something I think is perfectly ok to do. In the 44 Scotland Street novels of Alexander McCall Smith, one of the recurring characters is a traditional portrait painter who has trained his dog to lift a leg and pee whenever it hears the words "Turner Prize." It is an hilarious repeating joke in the books, gently poking fun at a stereotype. It's too bad there isn't a way to remove the monetary aspect from the discussion but that's probably not going to happen in the popular media.
Thanks for these photos. Until this past year, I went to museums a fair bit and often saw "Kodak" moments but I don't carry a camera with me into those places.

[Robin Pywell]

Worth the wait.

[Richard Parkin]

Part 1 was only last year https://bit.ly/3BYlRz4 , no time at all. I’m not sure how it’s 856 days but I think they were worth the wait.

[The original call for work was on March 28th, 2019. I didn't count the days, but when I typed "how many days since March 28, 2019?" into Google, it gave me 856. Sounds right. I'll tell the story of what happened in a few days. --Mike]

[Michael J. Perini]

Very Nice, Great pix .....and it only took one day.........
I appreciate that you went back and did this.

Lots of talented folks around here.

[Benjamin Marks]

Marvelous! TOP'pers never disappoint!

[Rob Marks]

You mention Saul Rosenfield's submission of an image of an SFMOMA frieght elevator. This image and others from his series illustrated an article I wrote about the unexpected intervention of the freight elevator as art: https://www.dailyserving.com/2012/08/hashtags-going-up-at-sfmoma/. (See, in particular, the video compilation of 21 images.) Thanks much for your site!

[Peter Williams]

Thank you :-)

[MikeR]

"Grounds for Sculpture" in New Jersey is worth a visit, if only for the novelty.

I found that if I stood at a certain spot near the sculptural recreation of "The Boating Party," the resulting image rendered by the camera looks quite like the painting ... except for the real people who inject themselves into the tableau.

[David Dyer-Bennet]

The crew here are really good / talented / lucky whatever you want to call it. And you're a good curator, in the selection function particularly. These are all very good indeed.

[Alan Whiting]

At one point I was given an old Polaroid camera, but one I could still get film for. It's quite a different procedure from my standard 35mm/120, and once I did something unintended and got a completely black picture. I wasn't sure whether it was meaningless or crawling with ominous intent. I'm still not sure.

[Dave Millier]

Another interesting (possible) language difference between US and UK. To me, the word "museum" describes a place that stores, curates and exhibits historical and archeological artefacts (stone arrow heads, pottery, spears, mummies, armour, tools, jewellery and so on.

It would never be used to describe an art gallery or an aquarium.

The British Museum is a museum, the National Portrait Gallery is not, nor is the Photographers Gallery.

I don't know why a building that stores and exhibits 500 year old paintings is a gallery, rather than a museum, but it is. Perhaps this is a bit like the US use of Theater to describe a place where movies are shown. In the UK that is a cinema, and a theatre is a place where actors produce live plays. Language is such fun!

[jp41]

I was pleasantly surprised to encounter the posting of The Baker's Dozen: "In The Museum" after reading the day before it would not be completed. Another set of excellent photos! When I read the description about the Sunfish in Aquarium photo and its resemblance with the 'Mystery Science Theater' TV series, it brought a smile to my face, and increased my viewing enjoyment by 10x. If this image were offered in a print sale I would buy one. For me, the Print Critiques and The Baker's Dozen essays are two of TOP's USPs. (https://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2016/07/beyond-the-usp.html)

[Arg]

Surely that last one qualifies for a Caption This competition!