Johnny J, are you talking about professional photographers or the public taking souvenir stills and/or video?

Whether I'm performing or watching, I find them both annoying when they go overboard. I would be happiest if the pros would not get between performer and audience, nor use flash unless authorized by the performer. The clear exception IMO would be if the event is clearly billed in advance as a video-recording or photography session so that the audience knows up front that the priority is good camera angles, and that they may be in some of the shots.

These days cameras are everywhere. Often I've found them pointed at me and my dogs. I go immediately to the person and let them know please don't take any pictures of my dogs or me. One guy demanded to know why not--it astonished me that he didn't understand the most basic privacy issue. Duh, because I don't want you to!

But back to performance situations: The public is a hard thing to control with a video-recorder in every cell phone.

Intellectual property is how artists make their bread and butter, so where is the line between souvenir shots and theft? My a cappella quartet was hired for a BIA sidewalk sale last weekend, and perhaps the apparently spontaneous nature of the singing made people feel free to record. Several times, fully 50% of passers-by who stopped also whipped out their phones and started recording. (Yes, we're fairly good, but still that seems a high percentage!) We have an image to maintain and we deal with copyrights and permissions, yet the public usually thinks little, perhaps cares less about the fact that we want to control whether and where our image appears.

This has not been an issue at our formal performances. We are unknown enough not to be invaded by loads of thoughtless, unsolicited photographers. Our audiences themselves have been very respectful. A bit of an afterthought: Does alcohol play a role in some camera excess? We typically perform in unlicensed venues.

~CH.