138  cameras in new york

Date: Mon, 6 Aug 2001 13:53:56 -0700
From: robin thomas <niborsamoht@YAHOO.COM>
Subject: cameras in new york

i've been a professional photographer for 11 years but
tango is what i do when i'm not working. i've never
been tempted to bring a camera to a milonga. i live
and dance in new york city, if cameras were
omnipresent here then i wouldn't be part of the scene.
in my work i never take pictures of people without
their permission and because of this i'm particularly
sensitive about being photographed myself without my
consent being given. i find it really distracting and
intrusive, which is why i'm happy to say, it hardly
ever happens in new york.
robin thomas

Date: Tue, 7 Aug 2001 11:15:58 -0700
From: Huck Kennedy <huck@ENSMTP1.EAS.ASU.EDU>
Subject: Re: cameras in new york

Robin writes:

> i've been a professional photographer for 11 years but
> tango is what i do when i'm not working. i've never
> been tempted to bring a camera to a milonga. i live
> and dance in new york city, if cameras were
> omnipresent here then i wouldn't be part of the scene.
> in my work i never take pictures of people without
> their permission and because of this i'm particularly
> sensitive about being photographed myself without my
> consent being given. i find it really distracting and
> intrusive, which is why i'm happy to say, it hardly
> ever happens in new york.

Speaking of distracting and intrusive, I would even more
strongly condemn as such the practice of flash photography during
tango exhibitions.

The typical week-long tango event features an exhibition by
the faculty in attendance. Unless the sponsor takes the time to
admonish the clueless by PA announcement to refrain from flash
photography, the performance is inevitably ruined for the spectators,
and the dancing made much more difficult for the dancers, as one
and all are continuously blinded by a never-ending bombardment of
flashes. Since these faculty performances are usually "in the
round," so to speak (in the middle of a dance floor with the
audience all around rather than up on a stage with only one front
to the audience), the flashes come from all angles and blind the
audience as well as the performers.

For heaven's sake, why can't the performers just line up and
pose either before or after the performance (much like the principals
at a wedding) so that people who insist upon having two-dimensional
facsimiles of everything they experience (or should be experiencing
instead of just mindlessly snapping a shutter instead) can get them
without disturbing everyone else who wants to actually be present in
the moment and fully feel and experience the purity of the strong
emotions of the dance and the music?

Most people (I should hope) wouldn't dream of taking flash
pictures at a wedding or at the Metropolitan Opera or the ballet,
yet they think nothing of flashing away at a tango performance.
At the risk of sounding a bit cynical, I am forced to wonder if the
same people *would* be flashing away at the Met if they didn't know
that the ushers would promptly drag them out for doing so, respect
for the performers or their fellow audience members not even being
a factor in their "discretion" in refraining from taking flash
photographs.

Huck