Being A Photographic Ambassador

True story……..

A few weeks ago, I was visiting Washington, DC, and went to the National Gallery of Art with my camera. I love making multiple exposure abstracts from different paintings, putting them together to make my own art that looks nothing like the original. There was a large display by one contemporary artist (I forget who), and there was a museum employee by the display with multiple tables, drawing implements, and paper. He was encouraging people to sit down and explore drawing in a way similar to the paintings. He saw me taking photographs of the display and, when everyone who was drawing left, he asked if I was getting ‘any good photos.’

When someone asks me that, I usually don’t just give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. In that situation, I would like to consider myself a sort of photographic ambassador and think of my behavior as reflecting on all photographers. The reason is that, on occasion, I see photographers acting poorly, either not respecting the environment, not following the rules of where one is supposed to stay at a location, or pushing to the front of a group because they have to get the shot and that is more important than people who are just looking. This is certainly not the majority or even very many photographers, but we have all seen it. And these few people can give the many a ‘bad name.’

So I told this inquisitive fellow that I wasn’t taking straightforward photographs, but rather trying to create my own art by combining bits and pieces of multiple paintings to make something new. I asked him if he’d like to see some of what I meant, and he said ‘yes. So I showed him some of what I was making on the LCD on the back of my camera, and he was really fascinated because he had never seen that sort of thing before. He thought it was really interesting.

A couple of hours later, I was on a totally different floor of the museum, walking through a different display. As I was exiting the area, this same person was at the exit, and he came walking up to me and said, “I have to show you a painting. I was thinking that with what you are doing, you could create something really cool out of this. Let me show you this.” And he brought me to a painting that was full of color and shapes. He was right!

After I had a go at making something with what he had shown me, I showed him what I had come up with. He loved it. He was, after all, a participant of sorts in its creation. So I feel like I was a good photographic ambassador and, at the same time, got to make something interesting. I also hope it left him feeling a bit better about photographers taking pictures in his museum (and elsewhere).

Here’s the image I came up with from the painting he showed me.

© Howard Grill

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