I was honored to be the official photographer on the Belgian National Day concert. When first proposed a month ago, I declined the offer. Based on my experience with photographing ballet I knew, that the mirror snaps of my camera are heard too well to people on stage and in the audience. Hence I hesitated to be the annoying noise maker. After thinking about it for few days I realized that unlike to a ballet performance where I take up to 700 photos the visual compositions on stage of the classical concert do not vary that much and with the few snaps I would have to take I could wait for the louder notes.

While being privileged to be the only one allowed to walk around during the concert, I tried to be as inconspicuous as possible and worked hard on synchronizing the camera snaps with the high notes. While doing my best to remain invisible, I was disturbed myself by a guy taking photos up on a balcony — with flash! After two flashes I assumed it was some amateur who did not know how to turn off the flash and was probably very ashamed for the accidental flashes, ..well, no! Thanks to the liberty to move around, I quietly rushed to the discourteous fellow and holding back my anger I politely whispered him to disable the flash. I am not a photography expert myself, but I seriously doubt that from that distance that small inbuilt flash was doing anything else besides disturbing everyone.

Photos taken in the Estonia Concert Hall in Tallinn, on July 20th, 2010. For the rest of the photos contact Embassy of Belgium in Tallinn.