Krosya
Konicaze
Here are a couple of pics I was able to get before being informed that this public event didn't allow any photography other than the "official" photgrapher. Even parents couldn't take pics of their own kids!!!! Hmmm. Oh well, I was still able to get these with my Hexar Rf and Hex 50/2:
Attachments
bmattock
Veteran
Those pageants freak me out. No offense, but I find them exceptionally creepy.
Krosya
Konicaze
Actually I do too. I just happen to be at a business conference and at the Holiday Inn we had it - they also had one of these. So I took a couple of pics. But you are right - these things are a bit creepy.
Matthew Allen
Well-known
Gross, but fascinating. It's only two pictures but there's something about them that gives them that slightly gritty documentary photography look which I like. Maybe it's the cheesy hotel decor.
Btw, is the lady with the microphone in the second shot telling you off? It looks like she's pointing at you.
Matthew
Btw, is the lady with the microphone in the second shot telling you off? It looks like she's pointing at you.
Matthew
bmattock
Veteran
Ah, good. It was not my intent to hurt anyone's feelings on this - I know some parents are really into it. But really - it kind of gives me the shivers. Like those TV commercials for 'Bratz' dolls a few years ago. Then they went over the top with 'Bratz babies' and it was like oh my God, skanky ho-bag pre-schoolers? EEEEK!
Anyway, I was living in Colorado when that whole JonBenet Ramsey thing was going on, and that was my first inkling that they even had 'pageants' like this.
akptc
Shoot first, think later
Nice shots. But those pageants should be banned. Wish there was a way to pass a law or something.
Matthew Allen
Well-known
I suppose you could invent an offence called something like "Sexualizing a Minor" but it would be incredibly difficult to prove and prosecute. It's never been easy or practical (or probably a good idea) to legislate against crap parenting except when adults are inflicting full fledged bodily harm on their children.
Matthew
xayraa33
rangefinder user and fancier
These pageants are super creepy.
makes one wonder if these kids will end up like Cathy O'Brien.
makes one wonder if these kids will end up like Cathy O'Brien.
Krosya
Konicaze
Funny that you noticed that - you are absolutely right on the money, well, almost - that was a pervy looking DJ, a guy, who was running the show and yes - was telling me to put a camera away right as I was taking a photo. lol.
Matthew Allen
Well-known
Oops, it looked like a portly lady. It's hard to tell when someone's been bokefied™.
Matthew
It's hard to tell when someone's been bokefied™.Matthew
Ducky
Well-known
Two points:
A. What made you think you could take photos of minor children regardless of circumstances. I would have chased you myself.
B. Surprisingly, the kids love it. There are a few stage mothers but you can't get a kid to do the performing if they don't want to. They are very competitive. Little league dads are just as bad.
A. What made you think you could take photos of minor children regardless of circumstances. I would have chased you myself.
B. Surprisingly, the kids love it. There are a few stage mothers but you can't get a kid to do the performing if they don't want to. They are very competitive. Little league dads are just as bad.
bmattock
Veteran
Granted that indoors at a private function, the management can restrict photography if they like. But that would the reason, not that it was 'minor children'.
If it had been outdoors in public, O/P could have taken all the photos he liked and too bad if people didn't like it. There is no law against taking photos of minors in the US.
I won't argue that parents who live vicariously through their child's hobbies is not the healthiest thing in the world.
But Little League dads want their sons to be Jose Conseco when they grow up. Not Rusty Warren.
Matthew Allen
Well-known
(Apologies in advance to all for aiding and abetting in dragging this thread off topic.)
What children may enjoy and what's good for them are often not the same thing. I for one do not think it's appropriate to turn little girls into grotesque caricatures of full grown womanhood. Childhood should be spent being a child.
Matthew
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Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
A couple of years ago a professional fashion photographer from the Gold Coast here in Oz was doing glamour shots of his own daughter who was nine or ten at the time from memory. Full job ... make up, hair and skimpy outfits and somehow the press latched onto it and the sh*t really hit the fan. He vehemently defended his rights to photograph his own daughter in this way and use the images commercially ... which he was. The other side of the fence who felt that he was sexualizing a young child, wanted to lynch him.
I can't remember what the final outcome was but I think he eventually wound up backing down as he eventually realised his professional credibility in his own industry was being seriously questioned.
I can't remember what the final outcome was but I think he eventually wound up backing down as he eventually realised his professional credibility in his own industry was being seriously questioned.
Krosya
Konicaze
Is there a law that stops me from doing so? Do you know children that are NOT minors? lol
I'd love to see you try.....
But really, this is why - because people think this way photography will be dead soon. Well, other than taking pictures at the zoo or botanical garden, since animals and flowers dont care - people are waaaaayyy too paranoid and see a threat where there is not one. Welcome to the new United States of Soviet Union.
bmattock
Veteran
I do think at least part of the last comment was valid - comparing Little League fathers and so on. I thought about it and I see the point.
Of course some parents live vicariously through their children. And many have noted it as not being particularly healthy - soccer moms, hockey dads, little league parents, and so on.
And although it is terribly sexist to say so, it is usually about little boys, not so much about little girls. I'm sorry, it's just the facts.
And here's the kicker - while the little boys are emulating adult men, it is their masculinity and athleticism that is being imitated - not their sexuality.
With the pageants, the creep-factor is, as you noted, the apparent sexualization of little girls into macabre (and frankly grotesque, to me) imitations of not just adult women, but trampy adult women. The little girls vamp and pose with lips in a knowing moue, hips (such as they are) jutted out, and so on. It's disturbing.
But even more so - perhaps a commentary on society - boys imitate men, apparently apex men, top-flight-hero athletic men's men. Girls imitate...what? Hookers and floozies? Are there no role models for girls to imitate?
OK, so that's a point made, I have to admit it. Who would girls imitate?
But still - the whole thing creeps me out. Sorry, it just does.
bmattock
Veteran
You probably don't want to get started down the Jock Sturges and David Hamilton type photography path.
We could talk about the weird and somewhat sick fixation we have on youth in Western culture, from movies like Pretty Baby and Taxi Driver to novels like Lolita to advertisements for jeans and I'm sure we could even discuss Traci Lords in there somewhere.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Being such a pagan I had to go and google 'Jock Sturges' because I hadn't heard of him. What a can of worms that type of photography is ... I would not be prepared to pass judgement on the subject matter at all but I can appreciate his talent as a photographer!
smiling gecko
pure dumb luck, my friend
...words (almost) fail me.
...words (almost) fail me.
there is absolutely, positively, nothing redeeming or edifying or worthwhile about these so-called "children's pageants".
i agree with the sentiments of all the previous posters - except ducky - about the whole childhood robbing, sexualization and objectifying process they promote.
for some real "little darlings" please go to my rff gallery and open the "return to beslan" album. there are some happy little people there bravely carrying on with their lives busy about the enterprise of being children. their smiles and sparkling eyes show triumph over the tragedy they survived. btw, if you any of you have children their age and they would like to correspond with them please contact me. alot of young children there study english so that helps with translation issues. in the interest of secuity and privacy have a post office box and will make that available for relaying letters.
"The seeds we plant today are the harvest of today's and tomorrow's children of the world. (tn)
take care,
kenneth lockerman
NEVER FORGET BESLAN
www.neverforgetbeslan.org
neverforgetbeslan@gmail.com
...words (almost) fail me.
there is absolutely, positively, nothing redeeming or edifying or worthwhile about these so-called "children's pageants".
i agree with the sentiments of all the previous posters - except ducky - about the whole childhood robbing, sexualization and objectifying process they promote.
for some real "little darlings" please go to my rff gallery and open the "return to beslan" album. there are some happy little people there bravely carrying on with their lives busy about the enterprise of being children. their smiles and sparkling eyes show triumph over the tragedy they survived. btw, if you any of you have children their age and they would like to correspond with them please contact me. alot of young children there study english so that helps with translation issues. in the interest of secuity and privacy have a post office box and will make that available for relaying letters.
"The seeds we plant today are the harvest of today's and tomorrow's children of the world. (tn)
take care,
kenneth lockerman
NEVER FORGET BESLAN
www.neverforgetbeslan.org
neverforgetbeslan@gmail.com
payasam
a.k.a. Mukul Dube
Little girls will always fool around with lipstick and other "grown-up" things: but to encourage them to do that is another matter.