Hi y'all,

Just came back from a wonderul weekend in Sevilla. ¡Qué tesoro! I will post details of the visit later, but onr thing rankled me that I have to get off of my chest: the use of flash photography. Arrrggghhh!!!

We were in the grand Cathedral on Sunday with about a zillion other tourists. While there were signs posted prohibiting flash photography, hundreds of tourists, most of them senior citizens who should know better, were gleefully using their flash cameras! Sorry, but it really pissed me off. I brought my old Canon AE-1 without a flash for this very reason. And ironically a pestering French couple were adamant about me not taking pictures (WITHOUT a flash) while their countrymen and bus loads of German tourists were running around with cameras flashing left and right. You know my opinions of the Franco German alliance. Though I saw locals just as guilty, the predominance of my favorite people and their cameras made the travesty all the worse.

I talked to the guard, and he matter of factly said "well, we would have to either confiscate cameras at the door or hire hundreds more people to make sure no one took flash pictures." Rather simplisitic and dead wrong. I half-jokingly suggested the FLASH police. When I was in Firenze many years ago, I seem to recall that the Italian museum keepers did an excellent job and controlling flash happy ignoramuses. It would not take but a few people and some enforcement of the rules.

The combination of new technology, Spain's booming tourism industry, and the unfettered access to Spain's artistic treasures requires a proportional response....before it is too late. Even when visiting the Reina Sofia and Picasso's Guernica, folks were flashing their bulbs left and right. Hire school kids or something. The paint WILL discolor and do so rather rapidly.

Spain's treasures are only now being exposed to throngs tourists in HUGE numbers. Italy has been dealing with related issues for years.

So for all the tourists out there, please refrain from taking using a flash picture that is unlikely to come out anyway at the expense of reducing the life of Spain's art treasures for future generations.

For locals, if you saw what I saw, you would be aghast for the future. These are your national treasures. Maybe a letter writing campaign or some journalistic piece would call to attention this potentially devastating problem.

Cheers, A