Is Tango Photography Intrusive?

The issue of photography at tango events seems to be becoming ever more thorny. People on tango mailing lists and blogs both happily swap YouTube videos of dancer and images of the dance, and decry them as an intrusion into the intimacy of the dance.

Sorin has now stirred the pot further by talking about a professional photography service on both his blog and on tango-l. Some people have been friendly and constructive and others positively vitriolic in their insistence that any form of recording is an intrusion into their dance.

Now, here's where I'm struggling. Tango is generally danced at public events. You pay to get in, you find a partner, you dance. Many other people are there. Some you know. Some you don't. They can watch you dance. Any privacy you have is either illusory, because you're being watched, or incapable of being intruded upon, because it exists only in the communication between you and your partner.

So how can a camera, which is just an electronic eye, be any more intrusive than one of your fellow attendees watching you dance? Is the thought of your dance existing outwith the milonga so very frightening?

An photographer who is intrusive in the way she moves around - that I can understand. But the act of photography itself? There I struggle.

Comments

[Cherie]

What can be intrusive is the obvious taking of photographs or videos; i.e., with flash or big equipment. This can totally change the ambiance of a milonga, and distract not only the dancers but the watchers.

Here in BsAs, it's against the codigos and considered rude. Not only because of the distractions of the process, but the invasion of privacy. Not everyone enjoys being surprised with internet photos and videos of themselves dancing with perhaps people or in places where they possibly don't want the world to know about.

Photography with no flash and no publication on the web can be more acceptable--more subtle and more anonymous.

[Adam]

The intrusion of flash I can certainly understand - but it should be unnecessary, with modern digital capture allowing flash-free photos in very dark environments.

The whole issue of pictures appearing on the internet is, I suspect, a losing battle. Today's teens and even 20-somethings have a complete expectation of being able to photograph or video anything with their mobile phones and shove it up on the 'net.

As hard as it's going to be for those of us who haven't grown up with this technology, we're going to have to adapt to a more recorded age.

[Debbi]

I have to say that I do not find photography intrusive. Every milonga or festival that I have been to where a photographer is present, the picture taking has been done in a tasteful, silent and out-of-the-way fashion. I have to laugh as I read a lot of these ridiculous statements that are being made (mostly anonymously....) as these photographers are professionals, and not paparazzi. Even when the tango gods descend to our milongas, the paparazzi are not present. The photography is a nice way to capture moments and slices of milonga life. And flash is never an issue as any professional knows how to bounce the light off of the ceiling and walls so as not to intrude.
I find the dancers with their point and shoot digital cameras more intrusive as they tend to not know how to take a picture without causing issues with the line of dance or causing blindness in my leader (thankfully, I dance with my eyes closed, but the bright red light when a flash goes off behind my closed eyes is still startling).
As with any public event, there is no expectation of privacy. Nor should there be.

[miss tango]

Although, Cherie mentions that in BsAs photography doesn´t go over well, we have the other 50% here that seem to love the camera and will dance into the line of shot, and make love to the camera.