In the first week of December I went to Birmingham, and one my destinations was the Birmingham Musem and Art Gallery that houses the works of some leading Pre-Raphaelites. Taught by experience, I asked about the photography. Yes, I had to fill out the form again, but this time the rules were set out in more detail, although once more there is a clause or two that may potentially be difficult to interpret even for the staff themselves:

1. Any copyrights (including publication rights) created in the photographic materials produced under the conditions stated below are reassigned to Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

2. Any photography is for personal reference only. No permission for any reproduction rights of any kind is granted or may be assumed. Permission for reproduction rights should be applied for, in writing, to the Picture Library. Each case will be evaluated independently.

3. Any work, which is protected by the artists’ copyright, may not be photographed without the permission of the copyright holder.

4. Any works on loan, including temporary exhibitions, may not be photographed.

5. Flash photography is permitted unless otherwise specified.

6. The use of professional photographic equipment is prohibited. Tripods and monopods may not be used under any circumstances.

7. Video cameras or camcorders may not be used under any circumstances. Filming is prohibited.

Fair enough, reading these rules may put an intrepid visitor off taking pictures in the gallery altogether. However, the first two points just further reinforce what I have highlighted in the previous post on the question of reproduction. The problem is seemingly not only about a picture’s commercial use, but about the multiplicity of such uses. Naturally, if the photo is included in a book, it will be reproduced as many time as the book. For this, it is essential to apply for a permission to a museum.

Regarding the 3rd point, my feeling is that this needs to be discussed with the copyright holder before their work actually gets to be displayed. This is something that many professional artists’ and photographers’ websites tend to lose the sight of. By creating a website and making it public, they by default agree that this information can be shared. It is the same as with the printed word: if it was printed, you cannot stop people from quoting it. This is not to say that their work can be reproduced for commercial purposes by other people, but this should mean that a blogger may wish to not only write about them and give a link to their website, but also to include an image in the post, to illustrate why it would be good to visit the website at all.

Likewise, when an artist is displaying their work at the museum or gallery where photography is generally permitted, they have to be aware that a visitor can upload a taken photo online. It makes every sense to restrict this, on the one hand; but, on the other hand, the world has grown bigger with the Internet, and this potentially means that artists, especially young, may find it more and more difficult to compete with other artists and to assert themselves in the world. Social Media tools, and particularly photosharing, will facilitate this to an extent.

With loaned works and temporary exhibitions, I feel the galleries would need to spare some resources to clearly display the permission signs in such spaces of the gallery. As more and more often galleries intercept the regular display with a temporary exhibition, it is difficult for a visitor to understand where a photography permission ends and where it resumes again.

Regarding the specialist photography permission, this is a good point and the one that I think can be reinforced to avoid the taken photos being reproduced to a commercial end. This is how the Brooklyn Museum defines their stance on photography in the gallery:

Photography and videography are allowed in the Museum so long as the images are taken using existing light only (no flash) and are for personal, non-commercial use. Photography and videography are often restricted in special exhibition galleries.

Add to this also that many paintings are displayed under the glass, hence the photographic image of a painting in the gallery space can be far from ideal for reproduction.

A different take on photography and videography in the museum comes from the State Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Russia. As you need to purchase tickets to view the collection, you can also purchase a permission to make photos or videos in the museum. The website explains that there are warning pictograms in the halls where it is not permitted to take photos or to use flash. I did use this permission once myself in 2002, and this was great to show the museum to my parents who happened to have never visited the Hermitage.

The question rises, of course: why would I film, and not buy a video cassette or a DVD? Well, we all count our pennies, and on my memory even 6 years ago it was cheaper to pay for a photography pass rather than to buy a DVD set. I have been taking a notice of what people photograph and film, and I have never seen any of them making a complete record of the collection. If any of the readers have been to the Hermitage, they vividly imagine the sheer grandeur of the place: you would not know what to photograph because there is too much to see, and all too splendid! They say it takes 5 hours to quickly run through the entire Hermitage (i.e. only stopping at a few paintings), so imagine the weight of this on your photo- or videocamera. But what the Hermitage achieving with this is very valuable. On the one hand, they allow people to create a personal record of a visit to this art depository, a historic monument, and one of the most beautiful sights in the world altogether. On the other hand, by asking for a small fee for a photography permit they also bring in money to the museum.

It looks like more and more art depositories are beginning to ask visitors to fill in a photography permission form. I do think that this is likely to be requested in a smaller gallery rather than in a big one. Imagine the huge queue of tourists at the British Museum, all filling out permission forms… As I stated before, I do not see any problem with restricting photography at the special exhibitions, and then there is a tricky situation with the works of art by contemporary artists, as not only is there a “regular” sort of copyright which we all acquire by virtue of producing a work of art, but there is also a 70-years copyright restriction. On the other hand, those works of art can often be found online anyway, so the first question is whether the artist and the art depository by restricting the permission actually end up pushing away the benefits of being directly credited in the image?

Another problem is how to define the concept of “reproduction”. Indeed, if I take a photo of a painting (sculpture, photograph by the like of Man Ray, etc), I am effectively “reproducing” it. Yet again, there are so many reproductions of these works of art on the Internet, and services like AllPosters.com not only provide links to a large number of online images, they also produce quality prints. I never ordered any posters from the mentioned site or others, but it would certainly be interesting to leverage the number of prints bought by those who visited, say, the National Gallery shop online or in person, and the number of prints bought through a poster-making website.

I must admit I never looked into the relationship between AllPosters.com and any of the art depositories, whose works they print: perhaps, there is a sale commission agreement, or some such. Whatever is the answer, this is clearly the case of an image being reproduced for commercial purposes. How is this different from uploading a photo to a blog or to Flickr? As far as Flickr goes, this is currently a non-commercial service, so “reproducing” an image there should not be constituted as a commercial move.

Uploading a photo to a blog can be more complicated to an extent, if the publisher uses AdSense. My personal view, however, going off the fact that many of the images are available online via different resources, is that if the publisher intends to earn their income by “reproducing” the works of art on their blog, there is little need for them to visit a museum and twist the brains over photography permission. They can find very many images on the web, or they can scan “reproductions” from a book.

Two things may be kept in mind. First, art depositories need to assume that people who do fill out a photography permission form may be intending to upload photos to the web: this constitutes the “personal use” for them. This intention cannot be denied simply because photosharing services are one of the most powerful communicative tools online at the moment, and it would be a pity to see the depository restricting this. Rather, a depository should have the means to see where people upload photos taken in the depository, and how these are being used. The question of an image credit is usually not disputed by the online community, but there is nothing wrong about reinforcing it.

And the second thing is that an art depository that asks for a permission form to be filled in, can in fact include in it a question about how the visitor is planning on using the photo. Better yet, visitors can be asked to apply for a permission online, and if they are an online publisher (i.e. blogger or website owner), the depository will be able to evaluate the resource prior to giving a consent to photography. Needless to say, such requirement would have to be very clearly displayed on the website or in the gallery.

I posted recently about the Social Media Cafe in Manchester, and by the look of it one of the members is about to start a blog. From where I and a few pals stand, things looks bright for Social Media and its use in Manchester, as elsewhere. But there are yet too many hurdles to overcome. Whilst my journalist friends are looking at the use of Social Media tools in the traditional media, I decided to narrate the two experiences I have recently had in dealing with an art depository and a fashion network’s event. In the light of this experience, Manchester has got a lot to improve.

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It’s been twice in the space of November that I had to deal with the rather suspicious attitude to Social Media, and blogging in particular. First, I went to one of Manchester’s major museums where it turned out that I needed to fill out a photography permission form. I know the collection well: I have been visiting the museum since 2002; a lot of paintings displayed there are in the “knowledge minimum” for the History of Art, which I do know well, being an historian; and, most importantly, I can access many, if not all of them, online, either via the gallery’s website or via several online museums.

The pictures I wanted to take were therefore not “for personal study purposes”: for those purposes I can browse the images online, or read a specialist monograph. I wanted to take the photos of paintings as they are in the gallery space, in frames, among other works, possibly with the visitors standing in front of them. The photos would be uploaded to Flickr and used on my Arts and Culture blog, to tell my visitors about the collection.

Some of you may already be asking themselves: who would need that, if the gallery has got a website? This is a good question. My answer is: the gallery’s website does not provide a feel of the collection. I see my duty as a blogger to tell precisely about this side of the museum, rather than some well-known facts, and for that I need pictures of the gallery space. As a visitor, I am empowered by a few means to make the gallery collection appear more vibrant and appealing to prospective visitors – and I don’t ask to be paid for it.

Update: I have been given a permission to use the photographs after I showed which ones I was going to use. I was also explained the problems the depository encounters even when trying to produce the photographic images on display for their own purposes. There are still many things that the museum can do to improve their interaction with Social Media, and their use of up-to-date means of online communication on the website is one of the things that are begging to be changed.

In hindsight, I should probably have written to the museum, explaining my intention. My only excuse is that this was the first time in England that I had to ask for a photography permission: I genuinely assumed that this would not be a problem as it has not been with very many other art collections and depositories where I have taken photos previously. I generally have no problem with photography not being allowed at the special exhibitions. But the collection in question is on a regular display.

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So, an art collection that does not deploy Social Media tools and is generally against the use thereof by others. But here we may be dealing with the case of “old-fashioned” thinking that can be pointed to a correction path by the overwhelming proof of the goodness of Social Media for museums. Another example of a very strange attitude to things comes from the fashion side. This post is only intended to highlight the problem, rather than to go into details. However, my recent experience of visiting a fashion networking event in Manchester has not left the most favourable impression. It was held in the network’s private club in Central Manchester, and the road to the hub of fashion could not be any more dangerous than the one down the abismally lit spiral staircase. Inside, however, I was greeted by a rather cold appreciation of Social Media: “huh, a blogger?” The network’s website is just as ‘private’ as their venue, and by the look of it does not aspire to become any more ’social’ in terms of the use of various SM tools.

This is the problem that I noticed across many fashion brands’ websites. Whilst I can see the necessity to restrict access to certain portions of the website, I honestly struggle to see how this necessity relates to images. The brands go the extra mile to ensure it is impossible to take a screen grab – but what they do not seem to realise is that one can use a regular camera to photograph the screen, if this is absolutely necessary. What happens next, is down to three questions: 1) will the user give a proper name to their picture (i.e. ‘paul-smith-pin-up-girls-cufflinks), in which case it is searchable, or leave it as something like ‘IMG_1234′, which really tells you nothing; 2) will the user credit the website for the use of the picture; and 3) will the brand know about this off-page activity. The answers to the first two questions are on the user’s conscience, but the third question is entirely upon the conscience of the brand.

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At the end of it all, the question I am asking myself, is: who is currently using Social Media in the UK? Naturally, people with the background in Media, Music and Marketing sectors have so far been the most outspoken supporters of this new means of communication and distribution of content – whilst the ‘Art’ and even Fashion industry lag significantly behind. But what really puzzles me is how the Social Media really is being perceived by these late adopters. The suspicion and a degree of arrogance that I noticed – and the fact that on many fashion brands’ websites there is no single bookmarking button (not even ’share this on Facebook’) – made me think that the Social Media folks are perhaps currently on the same bench, as once was the bourgeoisie class, snorted at by the old aristocracy. We know, of course, how the story went.

Following the yesterday announcement, this is an update about a talk on Email Marketing at Interactive Marketing 2008, presented by Lee Chadwick of CommuniGator. I wrote an article (below), and if you want to see some pictures from the event, visit Interactive Marketing photoset on Flickr.

GlamOnWeb Email Newsletter with Disabled Images

GlamOnWeb Email Newsletter with Enabled Images

How often do you get marketing emails into your mailbox? One of my mailboxes is regularly suffocating not only with spam, but with some good emails from trustworthy organisations. Unfortunately, they often use images in the template. Fortunately for me, I’m interested in their content (La Perla lingerie, for instance, or Victoria and Albert Museum newsletters), so I click on “allow images” to read that particular email. The biggest problem is that the image usually contains not just an illustration of the product, but the details of the offer, as well. So, had I not been interested and deleted the email without opening or clicking through to the website, the success of the Email Marketing campaign of that particular organisation would instantly decrease.

Lee Chadwick of CommuniGator Talking Email Marketing at GMex in Manchester

This point was precisely among those that Lee Chadwick of Communigator touched upon during his talk on Email Marketing at Interactive Marketing 2008 in Manchester. As one of the leaders in Email Marketing, Communigator has developed a successful business strategy to help brands and businesses to get the top results from their marketing campaign. And what one needs to bear in mind – especially at the unstable time of financial crisis – is that a marketing campaign has to be successful, regardless of its budget.

To achieve that, Email Marketing campaign should be automatic by at least 80% and must be an integral part of a business’s general marketing campaign. I must admit that each and every time I hear speakers reiterate this point about integration of different kinds of marketing into one campaign I cannot stop wondering how well they are actually being heard by businesses. What looks and sounds like common sense in theory is, in fact, not when it comes down to practice.

Further to the automatic and dynamic creation of content, a successful Email Marketing campaign has to be relevant to its end user. Since recipient is interested in content (and to read it, he or she will spend some minutes of precious time and a certain amount of bandwidth), it is vital that this content is right and engaging.

Say, you are writing a copy for your newsletter’s headline. How to know if it is engaging? In some companies, apparently, they write the copies on the board, turn off the light in the room, close the door, and then storm back in the room, and turn on the light. The most engaging is the headline that instantly catches the attention of the majority. There may be other ways of testing the headline text, and you can always rely on Google’s format of 25 characters for the ad title copy, to get the idea of how short and attention-grabbing your message should be. Ultimately, though, your task is to reach out to the existing or potential customer.

This means, in turn, that the right headline and no broken images or text are only the beginning. To reach out to the customer we need to speak to him or her, and this affects not only the style of speech, but also the content of the newsletter. In terms of style, you can use a newsletter template to dynamically generate the welcome phrase, say: “Dear Jim, here is your November newsletter”. Most crucially, though – and this was the most important part of Lee’s talk as far as I am concerned – if you have a website and have access to the data about your visitors (which you should have), you must use the data to generate highly personalised newsletters.

Why is this a must? A woman who is also curious enough, I often grim upon hearing the word “personalised”. Instead of making me feel like my wishes are being catered for, the word “personalised” secretly implies to me that my choice is actually narrowed down to the point of being restricted. But no, in this case (especially when we have access to the sophisticated tools that allow you to see the clusters of visitors’ activity on your website) what we have is simply a situation when a visitor’s movement across the site is being analysed and used to supply the visitor with information and news about products the visitor is most likely to buy. If Figleaves analyses my activity on their website, they will see that as a customer I am particularly interested in print and lacy tights and stockings. Thus, ideally they should be sending me an email newsletter focusing precisely on my website browsing history, as well as on my previous purchases. There may be other ways in which you can use your website’s data, but the bottom line is – if you have the data, don’t take it for granted. Analyse it, make the most of it.

Unfortunately, many businesses still do not see the potential of Email Marketing, and because a marketing campaign entails a certain amount of spend, the money is channelled into the well-tested, well-known outlets. As I further spoke to Lee about the potential of Email Marketing for fashion and art organisations, it became clear that these two consistently fail to address their existing or prospective customers in the way that would allow to build not only a brand awareness, but a brand following, which is far more important in terms of the results and the impact of a marketing campaign.

Interactive Marketing 2008 is the must attend event for B2C and B2B marketing and communications professionals. Today is the final day of the event, and there are workshops on Engagement Marketing, user-friendly websites (yes, too many of them are still not), and viral marketing.