The effect of presence

"There is a tribe, known as the Ethnographic Filmmakers, who believe they are invisible. They enter a room where a feast is being celebrated, or the sick cured, or the dead mourned, and, though weighted down with odd machines entangled with wires, image they are unnoticed--or, at most, merely glanced at, quickly ignored, later forgotten"

-Opening paragraph from "The Camera People" by Eliot Weinberger (1990)