Flashing lights. Many times when you go out to see a musical, play, or performance you are quite distracted by these lights that engulf the auditorium by the person sitting next to clicking their camera away creating giant flashes that engulf the auditorium every time the finger presses on the button. Flash photography is not only prohibited in most auditoriums, it is a huge distraction to the viewers, and to the performers. Pictures are for after the show, when the time allows. I mean, you can always just switch your flash off. I was sitting in an auditorium watching The Wizard of Oz, put on by the I school that I attend. There was a lady sitting a row down from me clicking her camera away, creating flashes that engulfed the whole auditorium. They specifically asked for no flash photography but some people like this lady, feel they need to break these rules. I finally couldn’t stand it anymore and leaned forward and said, “Hey that’s really distracting can you turn off your flash?” And to my pleasure, she stopped.

There are always reasons certain rules are laid out. If they were pointless, they wouldn’t be there. So if there is a certain rule, like no flash photography, why in the world would you feel you have to break it? I mean, is it really that hard to turn your flash off? In the case of Wizard of Oz, flash photography was prohibited not only because it is a disturbance to the audience, it distracters the actors from performing. We need to stop this epidemic distracting flash photography and respect, and follow the requests given to us when we enter an auditorium to watch, and appreciate, the performance.