Victoria & Albert Museum: 15 Minutes of Fame?
Back in July of last year I went on a trip with my academy director and his family to visit a few places in Jeollanam-do, the southernmost province in mainland Korea. Despite taking a lot of photos I only got around to writing about one of our stops - Soswaewon - and have been meaning to write about the others ever since. (As well as my time spent in Taiwan, Ulsan, Gangwon-do ... well, you get the idea.) Including historical backgrounds makes for interesting reading, but it does take up a lot more time than just resizing images and throwing them online.
However, they were posted to my Flickr account, which led to an email from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, UK. The Victoria & Albert Museum has a website that's well worth exploring, and for more information there's also the related Wikipedia page. A quick summary from the opening of the Wikipedia article:
The Victoria and Albert Museum (often abbreviated as the V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects. Named after Prince Albert and Queen Victoria, it was founded in 1852, and has since grown to now cover some 12.5 acres (0.05 km2) and 145 galleries.
The message I received on Flickr came from the museum's Department of Asia and sought permission to use my photos from Songgwangsa in an online exhibit to coincide with next month's opening of a display on Buddhist pilgrimage sites in Asia. At first it sounded like the museum only wanted to use a couple of pictures, but a follow-up email at the end of the week listed at least five that they were interested in including. (Giving appropriate credit, of course.)
This was really exciting news to receive; especially since the photos were all taken with a simple point-and-shoot digital camera. A camera with a piece that rattles around inside and a lens cover that I have to pry open with my fingernail each time it gets turned on. I guess this just goes to show that tagging your photos can open up some interesting possibilities. Having one's work featured in a museum might be good on an anthropologist's CV, although I think that's in reference to research / consulting and not photographs?
Two of my friends have suggested that the museum pay me to use the photos but I'm not sure how these arrangements normally work. After all, the pictures are posted online under a Creative Commons license rather than contracted work. In any event, it's nice to see that I'm not the only person interested in Korean temples.