Mural Photography Etiquette

A High Voltage Mural. Longmont, Colorado, 2013

Murals can be works of art just as much as sculptures, paintings and photographs. An artist created the mural and deserves credit for his or her creation. When photographing murals, remember this and understand that you are free to photograph these murals (including those wonderful banks of graffiti) when you find them in public spaces, but your photograph of them may not be used for commercial purposes (to advertise your website, to sell products, etc.) until you have the permission of the original artist.

Now, if your photographic work adds significantly to the appearance of the original mural, or the mural is only in your image by happenstance, or your work simply uses a part of the mural to create another, more complex, and different, work of art, then you might be OK. Yours could be called an original creation and not simply a photographic copy of another’s work. Best to find legal advice to be sure, though, if you are pursuing a commercial objective.

For most of us, this kind of photography is not a problem as we are not trying to make money off of the efforts of the original creator, and so it is with this image. This mural was on several sides of one of those big, green, square, power boxes you might see along the alleyway behind a strip mall or near a corner in your neighborhood. I tried to isolate what I thought was the most interesting portion of the painting. (I did not see a signature on this particular mural or I would have included it here to give the muralist due credit.)

Obviously the author had a sense of humor.

Postscript: I found an online article in the Longmont Times-Call entitled ‘Shock’-ing art appears on Longmont utility boxes (8/14/2011). Five artists are listed, so it is possible that the above example is by one of them. The location of this bright orange “bird-on-a-wire” image didn’t correspond to any of the locations listed in the article, though, so I still can’t be sure who painted it.