The World Wide Panorama

Introduction

The World Wide Panorama event of the second quarter of 2023 is a collection of panoramas with the common theme of “Museum”.

Theme Essay: Museum

The essay conveys the team’s idea of the event. It is usually published together with the Theme announcement and offers a starting point for the contributing photographers.

Museum

by Erik Krause and Carsten Rees

Many associate the term museum with a boring building with boring old objects. How are you supposed to photograph something like that? Especially because in many museums, the use of tripods is prohibited.

Well, let's see what a museum actually is supposed to be. Wikipedia, as well as the usual dictionaries, define a museum as "a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance."

So, a museum preserves and shows the knowledge about the origin and achievements of mankind. This should not be boring at all, and in fact there are a lot of very interesting and lively museums. I remember a museum in the south of France where they show how silk is made, with actual live silkworms. Or there are several projects around the world where old buildings are recreated with the tools of the time.

But it goes further, because perhaps much of the objects and knowledge that should be preserved, is not yet stored in museums. Old tools rotting in an abandoned workshop, street art, scientific experiments, ancient crafts, even parts of nature that will disappear.

Some people collect items in their houses or gardens, which then have the character of a museum. Maybe they want to show them to a broader public? And if you are not allowed to shoot inside an official museum, you still can shoot from the outside. Some museums are located in breathtaking buildings, like the MOMA in Bilbao or the Vitra Desing museum. Some are hidden in backstreets.

And there are some ladies, who might help and inspire you. After all, the first meaning of the Μουσεῖον – Museion is the home of Klio, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Euterpe, Thalia, Erato, Urania, Polyhymnia and of course Kalliope, who is the Muse that might be responsible for panorama photographers.