A few weeks ago we were at our “Mum and Baby Class”. There is one Mother in the class who always comes with her partner and she is always taking photos! Now I don’t mean happy snaps, I mean full digital SLR and is constantly setting her son up for the perfect photo moment! This normally doesn’t bother me and the only part that annoyed me was the fact this women was spending time with her child through the lens, she was not interacting with him and he was constantly being asked to pose. This wasn’t just one week, this was week 3 or 4 of this happening.
Finally another Mum in the group complained, she walked out of the class with her child and asked the manager to stop this women taking photos.
So what I want to know is, what do you consider appropriate? Do you get annoyed if your child is in photos that other parents have taken? What is your general guidelines when taking photos of your child? Are you careful to exclude other children?
Today I took hubby with me for the first time to our group and I wanted to take photos to record the first time Daddy came. But I was so self concious I took 3-4 photos and made sure it was only when my son was well out of the way of other children.
I would love to here your thoughts!
Jen xx
I do like my daughter to be in other people’s photographs. If I think she will be I will move her. When I take photos of her I am always carful not to get children I don’t know in the photo. 1. I don’t need to & 2. It’snot them I want to have pics of? One thing I hate is when tourist take photos of children who are clearly not theirs..? It is a difficult thing to police and I think it comes down to commom respect and noone needs photos of people or children they don’t know.
Sorry that was meant to say do NOT!!
I would rather my kids not be in photos unless I am asked beforehand.
I had to sign a permission slip for my children to be allowed to have their photo taken at kindy. We receive the photos when they are done and they always have other kids playing alongside ours. I think that’s fine, because it’s a controlled environment and our kids are playing with other kids their and it isn’t as if we are all total strangers.
However in public who knows what is going on with the photos? I think it is rude. Even at kindy concerts I feel totally rude bringing my camera and only take shots of my kids – or try my best to.
At the end of the day, kids will be kids and if your child happens to be in a shot another person has taken -by accident- I don’t think we should mind. But common decency would be to ask parents before hand, or wait until the other kids have left. You never know how other people feel until you ask them.
Just my babble for the afternoon!
Funnily enough I faced this dilemma just this morning. I’m a pretty snap happy mummy but generally don’t take a lot of photos out in public with others in them however today I took my camera along to playgroup for the first time, my boy plays with different toys and does different things at playgroup and as an avid scrapbooker I simply HAD to have photos of this. I was so concious of having the camera there though as I’ve never seen other parents with cameras and I dont know them all that well (there is very little interaction between mums at this playgroup). In the end I took pics of my boy doing the things he loves doing and stopped short of taking photos during morning tea when all were gathered.
It doesnt really bother me if my child is in photos with other children he is playing with, I know every member of our mum’s group has tons of photos of him!
I am cautious to omit other peoples children from my photographs and feel awkward when taking my camera to events but it is ashame that we have to feel like we need to hide taking photo’s or miss out on the photo moments because of what others may think. Although I do agree photographing all the time and not interacting with your child isn’t quite right either.. but a few happy snaps here and there, whats the harm?