Dear Boris, 
I send to you same  rapid reflections about the subject. I have not time (I must go to Spain) to go in to the "philosophical" aspect of the question, but I hope some of the participants will speak about it.
- I don' think the photographer can influence THE REAL sense of one  performance. The fact of taking photos  can disturb the audience,  its attention or concentration,  sure, but this one can react again, and as I think that every thing which happens when the performance is going on is part of the performance, the work of the photographers  is included in it,  as is the audience reaction. 
- The problem for me is not the audience,  but the performer. I mean when the performer himself  iscompletely conditioned by the idea to have wonderful photos. A  thing  which is  more and more  frequent. I have even seen a performer to stop the performance to ask the photographer to take the photo in this way or the other one, thinking that the photo will be impressive, even if the situation is completely false. Even worse they may  stop the performance because the photos  are not  interesting.  The only thing  interesting with this  kind of performer is the photos,  to have a "good"  photo  does not correspond to the reality. I want to say, that many times the photo is not "live" is prepared, and the performer  - if we can tell him that -  cheats.
- In my experience  the more  impressive the photos of a performance are,  the less interesting the performance itself  was. For many, many years ZAJ didn't have any documentation of his work, that was not a problem. 
- One other thing is when the performer included the fact of photography in his idea of performances even the idea of cheating, but that is another thing, most of the time is not the case. It is also possible that the performer realizes the performance ONLY to be photographed, but in this case, there is no audience.  Is that or no a real performance? That is one other point to debate.
-It is a mistake  to try to capture  the good moment of a performance. That  is a rétinien plaisir not other think,. Te performances is not a pure retinal art, happily.
- The copyright: I agree that  photographers  must earn their  livings and have the copyright, but I don't agree that a performer, who never asked the photographer to take the photos (it is my case,  even if I never forbid to do it) must pay to use these photos for non-commercial purposes.
Esther Ferrer

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