Got looked at like a Perv !!! Photos added as evidence lol

[Moreorless]

I take no notice of people expressing fear and loathing. The real "perverse" thinking is in their own tiny minds clouded by their cesspool thinking.

I have once faced a policeman who asked me "what I thought I was up to" when I was taking a picture in Bristol of a pyramid of giant xmas tree balls. A science lesson then followed on the dynamics of light entering the lens which was the concentrated onto a film of light sensitive chemicals bonded to a strip of plastic for a short period of time etc etc. I ended by suggesting that, if he was unsure of the legality of what I was doing, that he contact his superiors at his station. Seemingly he had been informed by "someone" that I was acting suspiciously! We parted on reasonable terms after he spoke into his talking brooch. A muttering ensued and off he went with a Merry Xmas from me.

I never cease to be amazed at the fear that people live with. I fully understand about protecting your and others' children from the possible attention from those who would harm them. (The classic being the case of Ian Brady once again spotlighted in the current press) but the actual incidence of such events is low but that is not suggesting we ever drop our guard. As an ex School Governor for many many years (incuding stints as Chair of Governors). I was on a number of occassions the Governor tasked with Child Protection issues which involved intepreting and implementation of guidance issued from the Local Authority on the matter. The training and data shows that most incidents of violence and molestation occurred within the family and friends grouping.

Within my own working life I have sadly been aware of two tragiedies involving members of staff whereby their children had been targetted by adults. In both cases it was by trusted family members.

The idea that photoraphers are to be "suspect" and "feared" is a modern day curse when taking pictures is a huge every day event with billions of pictures being taken in the course of days and weeks through camera phones and compact cameras feeding Social Media resources to share globally in many cases.

I basically will not allow my enjoyment of my hobby be ruined by either the ignorant or the self
appointed. I will, however, ensure that I continue to be alert to fears of others and to be a member of the wider community that exercises a general alertness to protect our children from all forms of danger.

I wish there was an easier way to lift the veil of suspicion from our hobby but without the concerted efforts of those who caused it (the media) we are always going to face nonsense. (I have purposely ignored the HiVis jacketed security morons from shoping centres/office buildings etc as that is a completely different agenda).

Steve

I'd point a very large finger at the fear culture pedalled by the likes of the Daily Fail and the Murdoch rags.

I do get the sense that "pedomania" ranges beyond looking to safeguard children and into looking for a more PC bogeyman than ethnic minorities, homosexuals, single mums etc.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

I'd point a very large finger at the fear culture pedalled by the likes of the Daily Fail and the Murdoch rags.

I do get the sense that "pedomania" ranges beyond looking to safeguard children and into looking for a more PC bogeyman than ethnic minorities, homosexuals, single mums etc.

Wouldn't disagree with you at all on your points.

The promotion of "fear of paedophiles" is but one of the media bogeymaan subjects and, as demonstrated on a TP thread a short while back, the twisted response by a so called "Plusnet Manager" to a hobbyist photographer trying to take pictures of Daffodils in a Sheffield Park clearly shows the media poison has fully mixed into the psyche of the imbeciles that lap up the nonsense sold as the"truth". The self same media that lauded the good wotks done by a certain Top of the Pops presenter..... They will always load the guns for the feeble minded to follow knowing that when someone suffers for it they can report again on any hate crimes they trigger in a "how terrible for this to happen" style whilst totally ignoring their responsibility for triggering it off.

I will never be an apologist for my hobby of taking pictures - been doing it over 50 years now. I am sad though at my pervceived feel that many of the population have "dumbed down" to a poing that they were possibly more intellectually adept at 8 years of age than they are as "adults". Present company excepted naturally.

 

[DG Phototraining]

Gosh - this thread has gone all serious

That's not normally what happens to my threads


I'm normally very confident about shooting whatever I want, and 12 years or so ago I used to happily shoot kids at play. I also once had someone ask me if they could photograph my son at play (about 3 yrs old) as he was so cute - I obviously said Yes - proud parent and all and not a hypocrite

I even won a photo comp with a shot of a scruffy lad at play who wasn't mine, it was merely a candid at the beach

And yet, I wouldn't do it now - thank you media [PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER] for making me feel something so pure as shooting cute kids can be wrong :shake:

Dave

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Gosh - this thread has gone all serious

That's not normally what happens to my threads

I'm normally very confident about shooting whatever I want, and 12 years or so ago I used to happily shoot kids at play. I also once had someone ask me if they could photograph my son at play (about 3 yrs old) as he was so cute - I obviously said Yes - proud parent and all and not a hypocrite

I even won a photo comp with a shot of a scruffy lad at play who wasn't mine, it was merely a candid at the beach

And yet, I wouldn't do it now - thank you media [PLEASE DON'T TRY TO BYPASS THE SWEAR FILTER] for making me feel something so pure as shooting cute kids can be wrong :shake:

Dave

Dave

Sadly this is a serious matter.

The other thread I mentioned involved a woman who used Facebook to "warn" of the guy photographing daffodils and described him in very nasty ways to imply he was a perv. Upshot - one of her followers stated that if he was seen again to let him know and he would take his nail studded baseball bat to sort the guy out....... Bravado perhaps but I do foresee a mob type occurrence when someone will lose their life for having a camera with a "big lens" in public, ie a public open space like a park.

Agree with your comments re the media but the nature of Social Media and ill informed people is also a dangerous mix.

I have no answer to the problem but I do not take pictures of children other than my own family and refuse to do "portraits" for others without the adults being present. I have stuck by that rule since the late 1970s. That said I stand by my earlier statement that I will not be an apologist for my hobby and I am sure others here will do the same.

Steve

 

[ernesto]

I was watching some show on evening TV the other day which gave some very interesting stats and strongly suggest that the change has come about in one generation.

91% of parents today were allowed out to play freely when they were children.

Of those 91%, 0% yes zero, absolutely none of them, let their own children out to play freely for fear of child abuse, dangers of traffic etc,.etc.


When I was a child I was always out and about. We had traffic awareness (someone would shout "Car" if we were playing in the road) and I knew to steer clear on men in vans offering to show me puppies in the woods.
The same issues were out there, the levels of paranoia were however not comparable to today. A case where "I blame the parents" is actually spot on...

 

[Hugh Jarse]

I was watching some show on evening TV the other day which gave some very interesting stats and strongly suggest that the change has come about in one generation.

91% of parents today were allowed out to play freely when they were children.

Of those 91%, 0% yes zero, absolutely none of them, let their own children out to play freely for fear of child abuse, dangers of traffic etc,.etc.

When I was a child I was always out and about. We had traffic awareness (someone would shout "Car" if we were playing in the road) and I knew to steer clear on men in vans offering to show me puppies in the woods.
The same issues were out there, the levels of paranoia were however not comparable to today. A case where "I blame the parents" is actually spot on...

Good points made there.

As an 8 year old in London in 1963 I was out playing in the streets and yes even scrumping apples in the streets around the Oval cricket ground. We wandered miles and having no phone in the house all contact would be on the basis that we reappeared a couple of times during the day. To get a drink or sandwich etc. Football was in the streets or in Kennington Park.

The summer holidays were a time to go out of the house as soon as we were up and for 2 shillings (10p) we could get a Red Rover bus ticket covering red buses anywhere in London, including London Airport.

Never ever saw an adult unless we were being a nuisance and a shout would have us running off to another place to play.

We still had wartime bomb shelters to explore and loads of war damaged plots (inluding the one on which the MI6 building in Vauxhall now stands).

There was more danger in where we explored (old ruined factories around Lambeth Walk) rather than the fear of adults determined to abuse. (Though the Moors Murders of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley were only a couple of years away from occurring).

From the age of 10 my "gang" would often go camping and fishing and be away for days, again without fear. Though we would spook each other by hunting one another by torchlight after the sun went down.

Adults were not the enemy then.

I think, as you illustrate, the lack of play and being out has done a lot of harm - the fear of crime and of deviant behaviour is overblown. The trouble is that when it does occur, as recent events in Wales and New Addington - it reinforces that fear. Without trivialising though, with a population of over 60 million, such events though cruel and vile, are rare.

Maybe we were more self-reliant then, because we did not become imprisoned in our bedrooms?

Generationally the fear is being passed down and self perpetuates. Sad really.

Slightly off topic but pertinent to the argument.

Steve

 

[DG Phototraining]

Same here - tea then out to play, often nowhere in sight of home or even other humans

Summer as a teen - breakfast then out until tea (6-ish), no parental contact possible; though I did twice get a phone call to them via a nurse to come get me from hospital after cycling accidents

Dave

 

[Llamaman]

"Fear is the product you push"
Rage Against the Machine


Edit: I like the irony of a reference to RATM automatically changing into an Amazon link.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

"Fear is the product you push"
Rage Against the Machine

Edit: I like the irony of a reference to RATM automatically changing into an Amazon link.

If you want change you create fear - it has always been the same. Thus politics was ever the primary push.

 

[Llamaman]

Although I've just remebered that the lyric is actually "terror's the product you push".
The old noggin not working today - serves me right for going drinking last night.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Although I've just remebered that the lyric is actually "terror's the product you push".
The old noggin not working today - serves me right for going drinking last night.

Still apt all the same. Fearand terror are bedfellows

 

[Lindsay D]

Same here - tea then out to play, often nowhere in sight of home or even other humans

Summer as a teen - breakfast then out until tea (6-ish), no parental contact possible; though I did twice get a phone call to them via a nurse to come get me from hospital after cycling accidents

Dave

Yes absolutely Dave, that was considered perfectly normal and as a result we became independent far sooner than today's younger generation. I remember when I was seven years old I would leave the house at 8 AM, walk some distance to the bus stop, take a regular bus into town which happened to stop outside of my school, then I would repeat the process in the evening. It was never a requirement that my mother was with me since I was capable of doing a simple journey on my own and it was part of the education of growing up. These days "children" in their early 20s expect their parents to accompany them to job interviews, the dentist, and everything in between.

It's little wonder that people these days cannot think or act for themselves much of the time. I get parents contacting me wanting their "child" to get some work experience and I later find out that the child is in fact a university graduate who is seemingly incapable of picking up the phone. The manner in which youngsters are mollycoddled (and allowed to behave in pretty much any way they like) isn't doing them any favours. Nobody wants to be personally accountable for anything anymore. There is always somebody else to blame to the point where that has become a national past time, the nature of this thread being a case in point. I'm a middle-aged female but even I get stared at in a hostile manner on occasion when I've been out with a large camera. I got so sick of it that I now shoot with something much smaller. Never underestimate the ignorance of the British public. This became a sea change under the nanny culture of the previous government.

 

[DG Phototraining]

Part of that reminded me of a contact for work experience I had quite a few years ago Lindsay

It was a mother pleading the case for her daughter to spend some time with me to see if she could cut it in a career of photography, partly, her mother assured me, as her photos were 'exceptional'

It then transpired that she didn't actually own a camera other than on her early Nokia (1-2mp) and didn't have a computer to download them either, so these exceptional images were simply on her screen some 1 inch high

When I suggested she buy her daughter a camera there was a near silent bit with her whispering to someone - the whispering was her asking her daughter if she'd wanted a 'proper' camera to which the answer was a kind of 'dunno'

Then a 'Which camera?' conversation ensued, so I simply said spend about £1,000 and you should be ok as a starter, then another £1,000 on a good computer and up to another £1,000 on software and call me when she's confident with it all

The last comment was FAB though, it went something like... I'm not spending all that on her, she's only just turned 15

I put the phone down asap after that

Dave

 

[Lindsay D]

I've had loads like that Dave - a few even went on to say that they had suggested photography to their child because the 'child' (read 23 year old) didn't want to do anything too demanding and photography looked like a nice easy way of making lots of money.

 

[desantnik]

photography looked like a nice easy way of making lots of money.

Thats so sadly hilarious.

Personally, I think brain surgery is a piece of p1ss and rocket science too - I could do that and make a fortune. As for running a huge company, no worries - I can eat food and play golf (badly)

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Thats so sadly hilarious.

Personally, I think brain surgery is a piece of p1ss and rocket science too - I could do that and make a fortune. As for running a huge company, no worries - I can eat food and play golf (badly)

But can you actually eat food AND play golf at tbe same time.........

Multi- tasking is what is required!!!!

 

[desantnik]

But can you actually eat food AND play golf at tbe same time.........

Yes I can, not so sure about the senior management here though ;-)

 

[Phil V]

My sister works for a company that validates training courses and says she regularly gets phone calls chasing up training certificates from the parents of recently trained security guards!:bonk:

Am I doing something wrong expecting my kids to get themselves off to job interviews, work etc?

 

[Moreorless]

I was watching some show on evening TV the other day which gave some very interesting stats and strongly suggest that the change has come about in one generation.

91% of parents today were allowed out to play freely when they were children.

Of those 91%, 0% yes zero, absolutely none of them, let their own children out to play freely for fear of child abuse, dangers of traffic etc,.etc.


When I was a child I was always out and about. We had traffic awareness (someone would shout "Car" if we were playing in the road) and I knew to steer clear on men in vans offering to show me puppies in the woods.
The same issues were out there, the levels of paranoia were however not comparable to today. A case where "I blame the parents" is actually spot on...

Not trying to come off too "sixth form politics" but again I think a big issue here is that the media and those behind them need a new object of fear for the masses to (mis)direct their hate at. As traditional targets have been eroded due to the obviously immoral bigotry involved being exposed criminals and especially pedophiles have become the subject of choice.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

My sister works for a company that validates training courses and says she regularly gets phone calls chasing up training certificates from the parents of recently trained security guards!:bonk:

Am I doing something wrong expecting my kids to get themselves off to job interviews, work etc?

Phil

No you are not. It's a bit like kicking them out the nest. Stand on their own two feet.

I often get invited (and paid) to be a member of interview panels.

I am growing more amazed at the number of times interviewees turn up with their parents coming into buildings. One interviewee asked if their mother could sit in on the interview!

I think back to when I went to job interviews in my final year at University - fearsome affairs but I did prepare and research about what was expected. Got copies of Annual reports and accounts, scanned through serious newspapers to read up on senior board members - no internet in those days!

I ask questions about the company to prospective employees, rarely get any indication that preparation was undertaken but when it happens you are inevitably looking at a candidate going on the shortlist!

Steve

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Yes I can, not so sure about the senior management here though ;-)

Good to hear. Trouble is senior management are not mental jugglers..... they follow the expected script.