Smaller World

[dalekboy]

Just got back from wandering the Giralang shops with my better camera (but no tripod). Pictures will be up when I find time.

On the way back I walked past the soccer field and there were a bunch of kids playing and being coached. The field was lovely, the kids seemed to be having fun, and in the distance between the trees, the Telstra tower was lit orange by the setting sun. It would have been a gorgeous photo.

Five years ago.

But of course, in this day and age, I couldn't afford to take it.

Someone may have seen the guy on the footpath with the camera and decided I'm obviously a paedophile, because the only people who could ever have wanted to record a scene like that would be fiends and perverts. No ordinary person could derive pleasure from such shot - children playing at sunset with a solid Canberra icon in the background.

Someone may have made the accusation, and with no prior record or any evidence more substantial than a person worrying about someone standing in open view taking a photo of kids rugged up against the cold and playing sport, I would be investigated. Our computers would be confiscated (usually returned damaged, even if there is not a shred of proof of wrong-doing), friends questioned, and the fact that I play Father Christmas would probably work against me, even though there has never been the slightest concern regarding my conduct with any child. I'm considered one of the company's best Santas.

Oh, and chances are I would have to move out, leaving my 73 year old mum to try and care of my son all day long (which would not be good for either of them), or my son would be taken away from us while the investigation took place.

After months of investigation, even after being found completely innocent, there would still be people who looked at me askance. Because there's no smoke without fire, apparently. Oh and I wouldn't be allowed to play Santa again, because it would be recorded that I was investigated, and that's enough to stop me being allowed to play the part.

Meanwhile, I'm assuming that most of the perverts who have any sense are buying camera glasses and pinhole cameras and getting their pictures that way.

For the rest of us, well, the world gets just that little bit smaller and less colourful as the illusion of safety is maintained for the masses.

It's all really rather a shame, as it would have been a beautiful photo.

Comments

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

In all honesty, mate, I think you've been reading too many tabloids.

[sjl.livejournal.com]

Indeed.

I disagree with your "unimportant but annoying" tag. To me, this is an important issue. It might be a small thing in the overall scheme of things. But it's the small things that combine to become big things. It's rare that we look at something that's a big issue and find that there are just one or two big causes. More often, it's a myriad of small issues, insignificant on their own, that just build and build and build until we realise we have a big problem, and wonder where it came from.

I can see it becoming a very significant issue for me in the not-too-distant future. I have two nieces, whom I dote upon. The elder is eight, the younger, four. If they go for sports in a significant way - soccer, basketball, hockey, that sort of thing - I would love to be out there with something like the Canon 100-400mm and the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 (both brilliant lenses in their niche), taking photographs to treasure. Yet I can't help but feel that if I do this, the accusation might be made, and the trouble that results will be more than I can handle.

It's a tragedy, is what it is, when men who have nothing more than the intent to preserve cherished memories have to pause lest their actions be misunderstood, and, through misunderstanding, their lives be ruined.

I suspect I'm babbling - sorry if it comes across this way. But I couldn't not comment.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

Last year while I was in Scotland I went to the end of year ceremony for my cousin's eldest child, who was leaving primary school and going on to high school. Pictures were not allowed to be taken because that would require the permission of all parents. And so little by little, even when the child is a relative of yours, it seems that the moments which mark their growth and change aren't getting recorded.

Photos that we used to take of children playing, carefree and innocent, we no longer do, or the act of taking them gets tainted by this worry. I find this very sad.

[arcadiagt5.livejournal.com]

That's just sad.

The worst aspect that I see is that later on you may not be able to record Lex's interaction with other kids, creating an illusion of a solitary life for a kid who probably won't be the least bit solitary.

[vegetus.livejournal.com]

I agree totally crazy and I really feel sorry for your friends who had to go through the ordeal of being investigated without reason.

Recently there was a case in the UK where a woman who worked in a child care centre was charged with making kiddy porn (one way they charged her was that some of the pictures were actually taken at the childcare centre). It was really interesting to see the media and community outrage and shock that a woman could do this. Because as we know only men are involved in child abuse and all men who show any interest in children are that way inclined. And then we wonder why we can't get any male teachers in primary schools...

[strangedave.livejournal.com]

if IS important, both this issue and the 'only terrorists want to take pictures of buildings' crap, and the 'copyright means you can't take pictures of public art' crap. Fuck them all, we have the right to take photos.

I am not sure that it is quite as bad as you say, though. Certainly some overzealous passer by might ask you to stop, the federal police really do have better things to do with their time.

[fe2h2o.livejournal.com]

About 5 or so years ago, my uncle refused to take a film in to be developed. My aunt had taken a couple of photos of their grandkids playing in their nappies (so she could paint the image). He was not prepared to take the film in, because he figured on something like what you describe.

[mynxii.livejournal.com]

This is the kind of fucked up thing that upsets me greatly.

And there is so much that I have so much trouble articulating, and at nearly 2am don't want to step on a soap box and wake up to trying to make intelligent responses at people tomorrow.

I'm having a cynical moment inside of the response I'm having which is a) human and not a small part feminist.

The context in which guys get to be guys is as absolutely fucked up and offensive as the inherent lack of value placed in women is.... that and several levels of other stuff.

[paul-ewins.livejournal.com]

Sad to say, but that was probably a wise choice. The thing I find really stupid about the whole situation is the ban on taking photos of kids in normal situations. How on earth can that harm them, regardless of who looks at the photos? If taking a photo is so bad, why are we letting anybody watch them in the first place? Surely that would be much worse. It is all so stupid and such a long way from the kids who are really being harmed.

Still, at least you aren't in the UK where you can be arrested for taking photos of bus stations or pretty much anything that the copper involved thinks is unusual. God knows what would happen if there were still any Police Boxes left standing in England as taking photos of them would probably see you in permanent detention.

[chuckmck1.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of when Max was a baby: I used to take him out in the stroller quite a bit, unaccompanied by his mother, and some of the looks I used to get (mainly from people in their 40s or 50s, and mostly women) still stick in my mind. Nobody ever said anything, but it left me feeling quite bitter at the time.

Without in any way wishing to downplay the true horror of kiddy-fiddling, it really has become the one major crime that seems to require little or no evidence for the general public to cry 'foul'.