How to Become a Museum Photographer

Video Transcript

"My name is Anthony Maddaloni and I'm going to be talking about how to become a museum photographer. A museum photographer is a photographer that really wears a lot of hats so to speak. A museum photographer can photograph the exhibits going on in a museum, museum photographer can also take images of the museum's collections. So that is one part about being a museum photographer that requires quite a bit of technical knowledge and how to photograph documents, how to photograph art work, paintings, you might even be photographing photographs. So doing that is actually pretty interesting, you'll be using strobe, you might even be using digital scanners, you'll be using digital cameras and maybe using film cameras. All these different types of tools that are at the photographers tool box so to speak will create different types of images for a museum photographer. There's also quite a bit of copyright that you have to know, can I do this. One really interesting term I heard a museum photographer once said is that, I am not improving upon art, meaning that you are just photographing the art work. You are not really trying to make that painting or sculpture any better, you are just documenting it. And I always thought that was really an interesting way to look at it. One other way to look at it too is that paintings don't talk back. I'm a photographer that photographs a lot of people and I'm used to different types of personalities when I am photographing. But when I am photographing a painting or a piece of art work in the studio, they are not going to say anything back to me whether it be positive or good or they don't want to have their picture taken. So that's kind of cool in on some days where I just want to photograph something and not be bothered. So those are some of the ways that you can become a museum photographer and again I would also spend a day with a museum photographer see what it's like. See if that's something that you are interested in. And you know, there's certain programs that you can, archivist programs, where you could see exactly what a museum does. And that is some of the tips that I would say to someone who wants to become a museum photographer."