I refrain from taking pictures of other people's children (all children are other people's to me) even though I would like to, and on the rare occasions I do take pictures of children, I refrain from posting them on this blog because I assume (1) you shouldn't do that without asking the child's parents and (2) asking the child's parents is such a weird unpleasant thing to do, opening up as it does the possibility of discussion re: the various uses unsavoury people might have for such pictures, so it's just not worth the effort.
Presumably this is why the internet is so full of cat pictures (of course, I am trying to bring the yang with all my dog pictures) and it is also why the human race will end soon.
Not that the world needs (more) pictures of children, necessarily, or cats or dogs or even quokkas.
Or octopii with soft drinks or perfect radburn suburbs for that matter. Or rear lanes in Forrest or the Dickson library. All things considered.
(NB later clarification: I don't just hang round the schoolyard taking pictures of kids etc etc I mean my nephews and nieces or children of friends etc whose company I enjoy as people and who do funny or interesting things worth taking pictures of).
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9 comments:
good points you raise about kids and cats, David. I might steal them for an op-ed, ok?
I've heard that if a child has to fly alone on a plane these days, they are not allowed to be seated beside a man. It must be a woman. Something very sad about that.
Simon, all yours.
I will never (attempt to) op-ed again myself as, last week in the Battye library, I came across a long diatribe I had written in 1992 for a small magazine. One of my bugbears, not important, it was just that I realised what a scratched record I have become (or possibly: have always been). Must develop new interests. Hopefully the Korean lessons (which start next week) will unlock a whole extra aspect.
NB of course blogging doesn't count. And I still reserve the right to be a bore in person. Hey why don't you call sometime we can have a coffee if you're ever in town, which you probably are, often.
Yeah, I'm a scratched record too. And I'm not even considering new interests like Korean. It'd be good to see you. I'll call you, and bore you in person.
In this situation I believe the ying has left the yang in the dust. It will never catch up, try as it might.
I agree the yang has a head start. What animal would Jesus put pictures of on the internet?
Jesus would just accept that cat pictures have a right to be on the internet and would not draw any unkind and unnecessary conclusions.
Jesus would not take these kinds of discussions PERSONALLY
I hesitated about taking a photo the other day because strange children happened to be in it. But they were climbing on public art and since I heartily approve of such activities I wanted to blog about it. In the end I took a blurry photo from a very long distance of two c. twelve year old boys climbing down from where they'd been sitting atop a sculpture. I thought that was a better choice than the 6 year olds standing atop near by sculptures, who I'm sure had been unduly influenced by the older boys.
Trouble is the picture is just so unsatisfactory for what I wanted to approve of that I abandoned the post idea.
Kirsty, this is a separate issue but utterly relevant. Part of my job is to document civic buildings and during the week children are all over these things. I am prohibited from taking photographs of anything with children in it, but of course one can look just as suspicious trying to avoid photographing children as trying to. It's a hassle and stressful. Mind you (as Simon infers above) women get away with this kind of thing a hell of a lot better than men. And mind you again, anyone who challenges me gets an explanation invoking The Name of An Important Educational Institution and that usually reverses and redeploys a different (positive, for me) prejudice entirely.
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