Taking photographs at museums

Museums have consistently disallowed photography on their premises by the general public. Some art galleries do too. (Borelli Edwards in Pittsburgh is one of them.) I have found that, for the most part, public institutions welcome inquires for press passes from bloggers. The Carnegie Museum and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts will allow bloggers press passes. All of the non-profit galleries downtown allow photography even witout a press pass; I have posted images from SPACE and Future Tenant. But Thomas Hawk, of San Francisco, ran into a very specific problem at SFMOMA --

After purchasing my family membership and visiting the museum today I was forcibly thrown out of the museum by two museum security guards at the direction of the Director of Visitor Relations Simon Blint.

My crime? Taking a photograph from the second floor stairs in the SFMOMA's atrium (an area where the SF MOMA's own website explicitly says photography is allowed). Read the post

Now, even the Carnegie won't allow photographs without a press pass. But if the institution has publicized a policy of opening their facility to photography by the general public, they should make absolutely sure that EVERYONE on staff gets the memo. I don't know what I would have done in Mr. Hawk's situation. But really, the threat of ejecting somebody physically from the facility would have been intimidating.