My cousin posted on facebook a request for us to vote for her family in this family portrait competition.
In this screenshot are the other three families (I would have included hers as well but my browser couldn’t fit all four in at the same time for me to screenshot). Please click through from the link above to see all four and tell me if you see something amiss. You might even be able to tell what is amiss from the screenshot itself.
The competition is called the “IMAGE Families Competition”. IMAGE because that is the name of the company, and based on the name, the competition theme is families. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see ‘families’ in the portraits of the other contestants on that page.
I made mention of this on my cousin’s post thread and was informed by one of her friends, “I think you’ll find that “families” come in all shapes and sizes… not just husband, wife and children.”.
Firstly, I find it laughable that the response was assuming that I potentially had a problem with a gay family, or that possibly, I had a problem with the other contestants not having children. It might be PMS speaking, but this struck me as such a righteous, high-horse type response. I’m so glad you’re such a liberal and open-minded person who feels strongly enough to try to defend gender, sexual or marriage equality. I certainly feel put in my place now for thinking that these other contestants couldn’t be considered families, how conservative of me to think this way in modern society[1][2].
When I first saw these photos, this certainly was not the first thing that crossed my mind. The lack of children admittedly did cross my mind, but it certainly wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me. Although now that you mention it (from Dictionary.com):
fam·i·ly [fam-uh-lee, fam-lee] plural -lies
noun
1a. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family.
1b. a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family.
2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family.
3. the spouse and children of one person: We’re taking the family on vacation next week.
4. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family.
5. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.
Those definitions tend to suggest children forming part of the family unit. Don’t really need to go into that bit much further.
What I am taking issue with, in case you haven’t noticed it already, is that while some of those photos are lovely examples of general portraiture with aesthetic value, good use of light and shadow, interesting focus and emotive elements, blah blah blah, they don’t strike me as thematically appropriate photos for a family theme.
Most obvious one, the Elsing family: I’m quite certain these are not found in your usual family album. They’re in their underwear. One of them is a rather seductive pose where one family member is straddled on top of the other one.
The Nimmo and Walter family also appear to have topless shots or shots of them in their underwear. In one of the Nimmo’s, it looks like there’s a hand cupping a boob.
I think I’m far from a prude about these sorts of photos and again, as portraits, some of these are quite lovely. For example, the second Nimmo one is adorable and I think the individual Walter portraits are quite striking. Even the last Elsing one is quite lovely even though the style and post makes me think of “The Kiss”. In fact, the only one I don’t really like is the Nimmo muscle shot.
I just don’t think that they’re really family photos and I think the photography studio is remiss in using them for this theme. Call it a regular portrait competition, but don’t try to label it a family one. The photos aren’t exactly family friendly, and when I was sending the link to friends, I had to include a NSFW tag out of courtesy. There are few if any circumstances I can think of when something family should also be labelled NSFW.
Returning to my cousin’s friend’s comment, I suppose if you think that (partially or wholly) naked and/or in the midst of seduction is one of the shapes and sizes of a family and that those photos are perfectly acceptable to put in a photo album between Little Johnny’s first steps and Grandma’s 80th birthday then okay, I concede that perhaps I am a little too traditional and most definitely not progressive enough for modern society.
Anyway, I voted for my cousin’s family in this competition, not just because they’re part of my family (as defined by dictionary definition 4 and 5) but also for the principle of the thing. I requested that I be omitted from the prize draw though because I don’t really want anything to do with a photog who thinks family portraits include seductive photos or nakey/lingerie.
[1] I had thought about this a while to figure out if I misinterpreted the comment. But I’m not sure what else she could have been alluding to. So if she was referring to something else entirely and I jumped to the invalid conclusion that she was referring to the sexual preference or lack of child preference of the couples, then perhaps I’m the overly righteous and defensive one. In which case, let’s blame PMS for this rant.
[2] *snark*
![My cousin posted on facebook a request for us to vote for her family in this family portrait competition.
In this screenshot are the other three families (I would have included hers as well but my browser couldn’t fit all four in at the same time for me to screenshot). Please click through from the link above to see all four and tell me if you see something amiss. You might even be able to tell what is amiss from the screenshot itself.
The competition is called the “IMAGE Families Competition”. IMAGE because that is the name of the company, and based on the name, the competition theme is families. I don’t know about you, but I don’t see ‘families’ in the portraits of the other contestants on that page.
I made mention of this on my cousin’s post thread and was informed by one of her friends, “I think you’ll find that “families” come in all shapes and sizes… not just husband, wife and children.”.
Firstly, I find it laughable that the response was assuming that I potentially had a problem with a gay family, or that possibly, I had a problem with the other contestants not having children. It might be PMS speaking, but this struck me as such a righteous, high-horse type response. I’m so glad you’re such a liberal and open-minded person who feels strongly enough to try to defend gender, sexual or marriage equality. I certainly feel put in my place now for thinking that these other contestants couldn’t be considered families, how conservative of me to think this way in modern society[1][2].
When I first saw these photos, this certainly was not the first thing that crossed my mind. The lack of children admittedly did cross my mind, but it certainly wasn’t the first thing that occurred to me. Although now that you mention it (from Dictionary.com):
fam·i·ly [fam-uh-lee, fam-lee] plural -liesnoun 1a. a basic social unit consisting of parents and their children, considered as a group, whether dwelling together or not: the traditional family. 1b. a social unit consisting of one or more adults together with the children they care for: a single-parent family. 2. the children of one person or one couple collectively: We want a large family. 3. the spouse and children of one person: We’re taking the family on vacation next week. 4. any group of persons closely related by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins: to marry into a socially prominent family. 5. all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.
Those definitions tend to suggest children forming part of the family unit. Don’t really need to go into that bit much further.
What I am taking issue with, in case you haven’t noticed it already, is that while some of those photos are lovely examples of general portraiture with aesthetic value, good use of light and shadow, interesting focus and emotive elements, blah blah blah, they don’t strike me as thematically appropriate photos for a family theme.
Most obvious one, the Elsing family: I’m quite certain these are not found in your usual family album. They’re in their underwear. One of them is a rather seductive pose where one family member is straddled on top of the other one.
The Nimmo and Walter family also appear to have topless shots or shots of them in their underwear. In one of the Nimmo’s, it looks like there’s a hand cupping a boob.
I think I’m far from a prude about these sorts of photos and again, as portraits, some of these are quite lovely. For example, the second Nimmo one is adorable and I think the individual Walter portraits are quite striking. Even the last Elsing one is quite lovely even though the style and post makes me think of “The Kiss”. In fact, the only one I don’t really like is the Nimmo muscle shot.
I just don’t think that they’re really family photos and I think the photography studio is remiss in using them for this theme. Call it a regular portrait competition, but don’t try to label it a family one. The photos aren’t exactly family friendly, and when I was sending the link to friends, I had to include a NSFW tag out of courtesy. There are few if any circumstances I can think of when something family should also be labelled NSFW.
Returning to my cousin’s friend’s comment, I suppose if you think that (partially or wholly) naked and/or in the midst of seduction is one of the shapes and sizes of a family and that those photos are perfectly acceptable to put in a photo album between Little Johnny’s first steps and Grandma’s 80th birthday then okay, I concede that perhaps I am a little too traditional and most definitely not progressive enough for modern society.
Anyway, I voted for my cousin’s family in this competition, not just because they’re part of my family (as defined by dictionary definition 4 and 5) but also for the principle of the thing. I requested that I be omitted from the prize draw though because I don’t really want anything to do with a photog who thinks family portraits include seductive photos or nakey/lingerie.
[1] I had thought about this a while to figure out if I misinterpreted the comment. But I’m not sure what else she could have been alluding to. So if she was referring to something else entirely and I jumped to the invalid conclusion that she was referring to the sexual preference or lack of child preference of the couples, then perhaps I’m the overly righteous and defensive one. In which case, let’s blame PMS for this rant.
[2] *snark*](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lq4wbkJhF31qz86zko1_500.png)
![disoriented:
mostexerent:
Take that THOU!
Okay, this is kind of awesome.
It really is. And was made more awesome when I accidentally misread flap-dragon and flax-wench and merged the two lines together to make flap-wench.
Take that you yeasty fen-sucked flap-wench[1].
[1] Ew.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp66v0yoNS1qazg1ao1_400.png)
