No Pictures Please

While in Paris we visited Le Louvre. Of course. It was big. It was interesting. It was full of art. And lots and lots of sweaty, messy, crying, getting-in-the-way, stopping-to-take-photos tourists. Blegh. There were times when I thought they were actually running a competition to see who could take the most photographs of the artworks in the quickest time. It was a bit sickening really.

I know this might seem a bit hypocritical from someone who takes tons of photos - but I couldn't bring myself to raise my camera once to take a picture in there. It just didn't feel right. I could imagine centuries and centuries of artists cringing at the sight of us all, burying their heads in shame.

At one point Husband snapped a picture of the crowd around the Mona Lisa - they looked like paparazzi, all seeing the famous painting through their camera screens, and not actually looking at the real thing. He was instantly reprimanded by a French security guard, 'No pictures of the public! Delete, delete!'

Are they scared that people will stop visiting their art gallery if they see how horrible they look in front of the artwork? How they look like a pack of dogs, drooling, gaping, pushing each other out of the way to get that perfectly over-exposed, perfectly out-of-focus, perfectly badly-framed photograph of the Mona Lisa.

Shame for Mona.

So here's me, outside Le Louvre, before our visit. I have no photos from inside, even that one that Husband took, because a French security guard made him delete it.