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No tomen fotos con flash, porque daña el arte.

No tomen fotos con flash, porque daña el arte.
Do not take photos with flash, because it damages the art.
From Lesson 132:Negative formal commands (no toque, no entren)·Spanish (Latin America)

Questions & Answers about No tomen fotos con flash, porque daña el arte.

Why does the sentence use tomen instead of toman?
Tomen is the command form (imperative) for ustedes (you all). To give a negative command to ustedes, we swap the usual -an ending of the verb tomar for -en. A regular statement like "You all don't take photos" would be no toman, but the command "Don't take photos" becomes no tomen.
How do we know who is being told not to take photos?
The -en ending on tomen tells us this is a command addressed to a group of people, using ustedes (you all). You could include the pronoun for emphasis, but it is usually left out because the verb ending already makes it clear who you are talking to.
Who or what is doing the damaging in daña el arte?
The implied subject is the flash, or the act of using the flash. That is why the verb dañar (to damage) is conjugated in the third-person "it" form, daña (it damages), rather than matching the "you all" form from the first half of the sentence.
Why is it written as porque as one word, instead of por qué?
Written as one word without an accent, porque means "because", which connects the command to the reason behind it. When written as two words with an accent, por qué means "why" and is used for asking questions.
Is fotos a masculine or feminine word?
It is feminine. Even though it ends in an "o", foto is short for fotografía. If you needed to use words like "the" or "many" with it, they would take the feminine form: las fotos or muchas fotos.

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