Kathleen Derzipilski: Flamenco, the moment.

"Flamenco is a form of a quest. It compels me to look for something I do not know. Dance, flamenco: you go to it, you go again. There is no choice. Each time is different. It is in the present. Flamenco is alive, changeable, individual. It is inward, singular, durable. Something happens and you are happy; someone says something and you are sad. You don't know when it is going to happen again. You don't want to miss any of it. 

I have studied flamenco for years. I am familiar with flamenco's rhythms and dance movements. And, I have been looking and photographing for years. It became natural for me to want to photograph flamenco dancers and to bring what is musical, physical, and personal into a visual image. 

A friend who teaches flamenco was kind enough to let me photograph her class, and the dancers knew me and allowed me photograph them. I photographed them in black-and-white and used a 35 mm camera. I later began to use a large format camera to photograph individual dancers.