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JohnC6

JohnC6

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John
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In the resort we're currently at in Majorca ...but it could be anywhere ...people are hiring twin bicycles that have a small bench infront of the handle bars and the holiday-makers doing the hiring are mainly mum/dad/kids. It's a great way to get round and in the wide dedicated cycle lane along the sea front. What's so nice to see is just how the little 'uns love it on that bench,that has a safety bar which the children grab hold of. I've seen a mum/dad with their three ginger-haired children. I don't think they are triplets but are very close in age..2,3,4 years of age. Their faces are a joy to see as they laugh and giggle ..squeals of joy as they go along. It's the same with other very small children. These three children with mum/dad pedalling would make a wonderful photo but I'm reluctant to do so and won't do it. I can't stop them and ask..I have no idea what nationalty they are. People don't like their children being photographed by strangers . It's a sad state of affairs.
 
Yeah, sadly, due to the behaviour of some men, men generally are assumed to be perverts or deviants if they do anything that is perceived or interpreted as having any kind of sexual motivation… and pointing a massive camera and lens at somebody elses child definitely falls into that category.

I steer well clear of it, I can’t imagine there would be too many photos that would ultimately be worth it.

it’s something I’m conscious of, and I’m always happy to show what’s on the back of my camera or answer questions from people / I very rarely take photos of people in private moments anyway, but i do take photos of strange things… bins, drains, etc and sometimes it does raise eyebrows, im a pretty disarming teddy bear and never had a nasty interaction, they are just genuinely curious about why im in a historic town, everyone takes photos of the big tourist attraction and there’s me taking a photo of a bin lol
 
Yes it is. I have a grandson, who although I have several hundred photographs of him the only one in social media is me holding him as he looks at some wildlife so you can't see his face. My daughter is rightly concerned about how children's photo's can be used.
 
One of my grandchildren has been "shielded" from social meeja by his mother and actually grandpa didn't so much have a polite request about this but was delivered of a riot act. I tried to get an explanation of the parental thinking and was dismissed with "that's the way it is". The other grandchildren from different parents have been raised with a more reasoned approach. In family settings I have to speak nicely to the "socially shielded" grandchild to get him to either let me take his photo or not. S'funny how the parents can be active on social media themselves.

My wife and I were at our favourite National Trust venue a week or so ago - the bank holiday before schools went back and we had so much pleasure watching other people's children and grandchildren playing together all relaxed and happy. There were plenty of opportunities for "happy children photos" but instead I made sure that my DSLR was switched off (when my normal default is to switch it on as I get out of the car so that I'm ready to go) and either on the table pointing at the sky or nestled in my lap and studiously ignored.
 
tikkathreebarrel said:
One of my grandchildren has been "shielded" from social meeja by his mother and actually grandpa didn't so much have a polite request about this but was delivered of a riot act. I tried to get an explanation of the parental thinking and was dismissed with "that's the way it is". The other grandchildren from different parents have been raised with a more reasoned approach. In family settings I have to speak nicely to the "socially shielded" grandchild to get him to either let me take his photo or not. S'funny how the parents can be active on social media themselves.

My wife and I were at our favourite National Trust venue a week or so ago - the bank holiday before schools went back and we had so much pleasure watching other people's children and grandchildren playing together all relaxed and happy. There were plenty of opportunities for "happy children photos" but instead I made sure that my DSLR was switched off (when my normal default is to switch it on as I get out of the car so that I'm ready to go) and either on the table pointing at the sky or nestled in my lap and studiously ignored.
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I fully support my daughters stance as I know where her concerns come from. It is not if we haven't got photos of him as he grows up, just that they are not on social media.
 
Although I occasionally used images of my children in competitions with their permission, my daughter was adamant that this could not be the case for granddaughter. i now believe that something happened at university which triggered her tough attitude. I am not on social media so no chance of me posting anything. While my son has not explicitly suggested such a limitation, I have applied the same restraint with regard to his two children.

Dave
 
Britain does seem to be going through a weird phase of Libertarian orthodoxism, under which anything goes unless "I" say it doesn't.

50 years ago, no sane person would complain about pictures of ordinary kids doing ordinary kid things...

Kirsten fishing Praktica Nova 1977_02_19.jpg
 
Yes around 50 years ago my photo was quite wisely published in several advertisements.
These included magazine ads showing me in the bath ( for TCP), TV appearances (for Sunblest) & a 16 sheet poster of me sitting in a Tonka toy,
I think these particular examples cover pre school, primary school (my first paid job) & early secondary school.
 
I always wanted children but it never happened for me. I've had girlfriends who already had a child and didn't want any more and I've had childless GF's who didn't want a child at all. Not having children is something I'll regret until the day I die but it's never been up to me. I suppose I could have chosen a partner based on her wanting children but at the time I thought that would have been wrong.

Anyway. Loving children and seeing the attitude some have today is upsetting. I can't watch a children's football match or watch them playing at the park or on the beach as if I do and I'm spotted I'm open to accusations. I certainly wouldn't point a camera at other peoples children.

What a strange and sad world we live in where it's automatically assumed that every stranger is a perv who's going to use every sighting or photograph for self pleasure rather than just someone innocently enjoying a joyous and beautiful moment.

Just to be clear, I don't view children as sexual, I've always been into age appropriate or slightly older women.
 
Bubbles1.jpg

Shot in St James park about 40 years ago (with a 400mm lens!) I wonder where they are now

D
 
ManandBoy1.jpg
And this one shot on the South Bank in London

I should add that this is the first time these images have been anywhere other than on my hard drive since the day I scanned them.

D
 
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woof woof said:
What a strange and sad world we live in where it's automatically assumed that every stranger is a perv who's going to use every sighting or photograph for self pleasure rather than just someone innocently enjoying a joyous and beautiful moment.
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I don't think that's the case Alan, I think it's more that people don't want to take the very small risk that a photographer is not trustworthy, not that they automatically assume you're a bad person.

A stranger promises to act responsibly, he won't publish them online? Ok that's reassuring, Then again if it's only going in their private collection, well that can sound more creepy ! The internet makes a picture travel, and potentially to dark places. I think people are so aware of this these days they won't take a chance, and realistically you can't blame them.

If I had a child, I would say no to the politest request from another photographer, not because I assumed they were evil, but because none of us needs to take the risk, however small.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
Britain does seem to be going through a weird phase of Libertarian orthodoxism, under which anything goes unless "I" say it doesn't.

50 years ago, no sane person would complain about pictures of ordinary kids doing ordinary kid things...

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Alan that is far to simplistic of an answer. I won't go into reasons, but let's just say she has two very good friends one works for the probation service and the other gave up being a social worker because of all the child abuse cases she had to prepare for court.
 
munch said:
Alan that is far to simplistic of an answer. I won't go into reasons, but let's just say she has two very good friends one works for the probation service and the other gave up being a social worker because of all the child abuse cases she had to prepare for court.
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You've confused me: who are you replying to and what comment is the reply addressing?
 
woof woof said:
What a strange and sad world we live in where it's automatically assumed that every stranger is a perv who's going to use every sighting or photograph for self pleasure rather than just someone innocently enjoying a joyous and beautiful moment.
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Crotal Bell said:
I don't think that's the case Alan, I think it's more that people don't want to take the very small risk that a photographer is not trustworthy, not that they automatically assume you're a bad person.
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This is where it gets more complicated though, and goes a step further - because we can assume what others are assuming because of what we're led to believe. I was recently sat having a sandwich, and there were some youngsters enjoying themselves at the playground, so I was idly watching them (didn't have a camera - but it's where the bench is), but I then felt uncomfortable as I felt that if someone saw me watching them, they would assume I was up to no good, and so I ate up more quickly. It's quite likely that no-one thought that at all - but we're now conditioned to think that they will be.
 
Not really in answer to the OP but in my mind something similar. I once found myself in a self induced tizzy over a picture I took of a rather large lady in a coffee shop, with a tray of pastries under an inappropriate sign with a croissant plainly being enjoyed. When I took the picture it was, I thought, just an amusing image of decadent pleasure. With the usual quality of my photography not of any great standard, by dumb chance this was perfectly exposed and I thought probably one of the best images I had ever taken. Then when I looked at it again a day or two later it just looked mean and that I was poking fun at some random person and deleted it.

I wonder now why it was taking. We learn as we go and sometimes that picture just isn't really worth it.
 
The thing about this subject that frustrates me most is that many citizens on the streets who would think it strange / suspicious if a stranger took a photo of a random child / children would probably enjoy / celebrate upon looking at an old photo they saw online of a so called "better time" with a group of kids playing in the street, without giving a moment's thought as to how that old photo got taken, and given the fact that cameras in days gone by were nowhere near as commonplace as now, there's a good chance it was taken by a stranger who happened to be a photography enthusiast.

It is a shame, because children's facial expressions can make great subjects.
 
In a few years time it will be a source of research as to why there was a sudden gap in the visual record of children's daily lives.
It will be an anomaly in the historical social record.
It will reflect poorly on our times. And social mores.

It is hard to make out when the tide will turn, but as always change is inevitable, and attitudes will once again normalise.
In the meantime time we will have to put up with unreasonable fear and distrust quite out of proportion to the reality of any threat.

From the Victorian age and the birth of photography, children were photographed doing whatever children did, both clothed and unclothed in all their innocence. This continued into the 1970 and later. The present situation is the outlier not the norm.
.
 
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@Terrywoodenpic - I cannot agree. Many things that we used to think were acceptable are really not and never ever were. The only thing that is different now is that we generally know now when something is unacceptable in today's standards and never should have been. The glaring question in my mind is what do I do now that we will realise in the future was wrong from the start? Sadly we seem predisposed to doing things that, looking back, were pretty horrific.
 
A big change nowadays is the speed that an image can be made, and dispersed.

(as well as the ability to manipulate, invent, twist)
 
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There’s some myopic views creeping into this, let’s keep some perspective and root it in reality.

Terrywoodenpic said:
In a few years time it will be a source of research as to why there was a sudden gap in the visual record of children's daily lives.
It will be an anomaly in the historical social record.
It will reflect poorly on our times. And social mores.
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I couldn’t disagree more. There’s more pictures taken of children now than there ever were in the past, it’s just that they’re mostly taken by parents and other family members, rarely by strangers.

As many of us are likely ‘the family photographer’ this is telling for us, when my sisters kids were young, I was probably responsible for 90% of all photos of those kids, nowadays, even though everyone acknowledges I’m a decent photographer, I’m responsible for less than 10% of the pics of my own grandchildren, they’re surrounded by ‘cameras’ and barely a day passes they don’t have their pictures taken. It’s a somewhat special occasion when I take their pictures.

Tulipone said:
I cannot agree. Many things that we used to think were acceptable are really not and never ever were.
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And whilst we can all agree that putting children up chimneys, or selling them into service is a bad thing, I don’t think social documentary photography is a harmful endeavour per-se.

But I also think that the cultural attitudes that see a man with a camera as suspicious is firmly rooted in small minded ignorance, it’s sad that the kind of idiots who used to be swamped by the worlds common sense now feel that their bonkers world views are now legitimate, and they’re amplified by the social media misunderstanding that ‘everyone is entitled to an opinion’ equates to ‘all opinions are valid’
 
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Phil V said:
There’s some myopic views creeping into this, let’s keep some perspective and root it in reality.


I couldn’t disagree more. There’s more pictures taken of children now than there ever were in the past, it’s just that they’re mostly taken by parents and other family members, rarely by strangers.

As many of us are likely ‘the family photographer’ this is telling for us, when my sisters kids were young, I was probably responsible for 90% of all photos of those kids, nowadays, even though everyone acknowledges I’m a decent photographer, I’m responsible for less than 10% of the pics of my own grandchildren, they’re surrounded by ‘cameras’ and barely a day passes they don’t have their pictures taken. It’s a somewhat special occasion when I take their pictures.


And whilst we can all agree that putting children up chimneys, or selling them into service is a bad thing, I don’t think social documentary photography is a harmful endeavour per-se.

But I also think that the cultural attitudes that see a man with a camera as suspicious is firmly rooted in small minded ignorance, it’s sad that the kind of idiots who used to be swamped by the worlds common sense now feel that their bonkers world views are now legitimate, and they’re amplified by the social media misunderstanding that ‘everyone is entitled to an opinion’ equates to ‘all opinions are valid’
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A breath of fresh air!
 
Phil V said:
I couldn’t disagree more. There’s more pictures taken of children now than there ever were in the past, it’s just that they’re mostly taken by parents and other family members, rarely by strangers.
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To a degree it was always the case that more photos of children were taken by family members than by others.

But...

In the past all photographs were physical things and survived because of that.

Today very few of them than ever will become hard copies and survive the death of the photographer and their hard drive.

At least if 'serious' photographers and documentarians photograph children there's a better chance the pictures will enter some kind of archive for future reference.

Phil V said:
But I also think that the cultural attitudes that see a man with a camera as suspicious is firmly rooted in small minded ignorance, it’s sad that the kind of idiots who used to be swamped by the worlds common sense now feel that their bonkers world views are now legitimate, and they’re amplified by the social media misunderstanding that ‘everyone is entitled to an opinion’ equates to ‘all opinions are valid’
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Sad, but true.
 
Ed Sutton said:
In the past all photographs were physical things and survived because of that.
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I think photographers tend to romanticise this a little.
It’s true that when I was a kid we had the classic shoe box full of prints, that included up to my teenage years, but the fact is that only a handful of those photos have survived to the present.
I have a few in our family collection.

However I have a cousin who has digitised her dad’s* photo collection, and that includes lots of images of relatives I would never have had access to physical copies of. Now obviously I can’t say how long those Facebook albums will last, but they’ve certainly expanded the number of images I have of my parents.

*her dad was the ‘designated family photographer’ and indeed something of an archivist of the local village life.
 
woof woof said:
I always wanted children but it never happened for me. I've had girlfriends who already had a child and didn't want any more and I've had childless GF's who didn't want a child at all. Not having children is something I'll regret until the day I die but it's never been up to me. I suppose I could have chosen a partner based on her wanting children but at the time I thought that would have been wrong.

Anyway. Loving children and seeing the attitude some have today is upsetting. I can't watch a children's football match or watch them playing at the park or on the beach as if I do and I'm spotted I'm open to accusations. I certainly wouldn't point a camera at other peoples children.

What a strange and sad world we live in where it's automatically assumed that every stranger is a perv who's going to use every sighting or photograph for self pleasure rather than just someone innocently enjoying a joyous and beautiful moment.

Just to be clear, I don't view children as sexual, I've always been into age appropriate or slightly older women.
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I’ve got 6 and 10 g/ kids plus 5 g/g/kids open to sensible offers above £1.50 for any of them as there’s more on the way LOL
 
I'd need a hell of a lot more than £1.50 to take any of them - and that's per picosecond!
 
I wonder if you could actually transfer £1.50 between two people in a picosecond?

Assuming Einstein is correct, your hand could only move 0.29979 mm (0.0118 inches) in that time so, even on a computer, you probably wouldn't be able to complete the transaction.

Just sayin' .... :thinking:
 
woof woof said:
I always wanted children but it never happened for me. I've had girlfriends who already had a child and didn't want any more and I've had childless GF's who didn't want a child at all. Not having children is something I'll regret until the day I die but it's never been up to me. I suppose I could have chosen a partner based on her wanting children but at the time I thought that would have been wrong.

Anyway. Loving children and seeing the attitude some have today is upsetting. I can't watch a children's football match or watch them playing at the park or on the beach as if I do and I'm spotted I'm open to accusations. I certainly wouldn't point a camera at other peoples children.

What a strange and sad world we live in where it's automatically assumed that every stranger is a perv who's going to use every sighting or photograph for self pleasure rather than just someone innocently enjoying a joyous and beautiful moment.

Just to be clear, I don't view children as sexual, I've always been into age appropriate or slightly older women.
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I understand your position. I always wanted children but we did not discuss the topic before the wedding. Later she made it clear that she did not want children and it particularly hurt when on holiday and seeing other parents having so much fun with their children. After ten years my wife's sister had a daughter and after holding this daughter only a couple of times, my wife changed completely and wanted a child. It was not easy and the first was not born until 4 years later. We then went for a second which appeared after another 4 years. This was some time ago and we now have 4 grandchildren as well. None of this helps you but it is often possible to get involved with children of friends or other close relatives.

Best wishes. Dave
 
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