This Museum Asks Visitors to Trade Their Selfie Sticks for Pencils and Paper

(Photo: Rijksmuseum)

You’re at the Rijksmuseum, a world-renowned art and history museum in Amsterdam. Is it time to extend your selfie stick and take a picture of yourself?

The museum staff gently suggests that the answer is “no.” They want visitors to experience what they see in the museum instead of documenting their visits online. So the staff asks visitors to put away their cameras. Instead of taking pictures, visitors, who are given pencils and paper, should draw what they see. Like previous generations of artists, they should try to copy the famous works of art or even create their original pieces. You can see pictures from the museum’s efforts here.

-via Colossal


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No thanks. I think I'll continue doing what I do, your racist rants aside. Right, they are protecting the Sistine Chapel's high ceiling. I'm sure you've been there and see how damaging photography (no need for flash as it's well illuminated during the day) is to that place.

At least Asian tourists don't go to another continent to have sex with prepubescent Asian boys, unlike certain other racial groups I know.
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And that is why many people so detest people like you....no respect of any thing or anyone. Who care if traveling outside of your country is expensive? No one....it is the same for most who also travels outside their own country so don't use that lame line. That is no excuse for not doing what some one asks of you regarding photo taking. And in most cases when you are asked not to take photographs in certain places it not to get you to buy something....news flash, it's about protecting the art. And this why I've found most Asians the most obnoxious and rude tourists....you just proved my point. Stay home.....go away.
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Yeah right. I'd rather use my camera thank you very much. They also told me not to take pictures inside the Sistine Chapel so that they can sell me some overpriced coffee table book at the gift shop. Yeah right. And I snapped away.

They asked me not to take flash photography of the Mona Lisa. Sounds fair enough, so I turned off flash but still took a picture.

Now when I went to the San Diego/Mexico border and took pictures at a prohibited zone, that's when I was accosted by a uniformed officer (this was less than a year after 9/11). As an Asian tourist, you do not want to antagonize border patrol, so I relented. =\

Visiting places outside my country can be prohibitively expensive, that is why I prefer to snap pictures as much as I can. I have not traveled outside Asia for almost ten years now. Costs have put vacation to Europe and America outside my meager means. So if I get the opportunity to go back to these wonderful places, you bet I won't be easily coaxed to forgo the camera.
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