Posted on 08/06/2014 5:25:10 AM PDT by Squawk 8888
A Newfoundland woman says she is baffled by the actions of a local Walmart after it confiscated a pair of “inappropriate” photos of her eight-month-old daughter clutching an empty beer bottle.
“When I saw the images I kind of chuckled to myself because they seemed so innocent that I was in disbelief that they were being flagged as inappropriate,” said Robin Walsh, a Gander mother of two.
Store staff also seized a bare-bottomed photo of her daughter and five-year-old son as they prepared for a bath.
“I thought it was such a cute photo,” she said, noting that the image only featured “bums” and “no frontal nudity at all.”
The two beer bottle photos, meanwhile, were captured while her daughter was teething. One features the child holding the bottle while the other features her gnawing at the end.
“We took a photo, and then we took the bottle away,” she said.
The baby-with-beer-bottle photo actually seems to be common for new parents. A cursory Google search revealed at least half a dozen images of teething babies being posed with beer bottles for comic effect.
Ms. Walsh’s images began as digital photographs, but she had submitted them — along with about 100 others — to the Walmart Photo Centre to be printed for a scrapbook project.
When she showed up to pick up the batch, however, a clerk called down a manager, spread the three offending images on the photo counter, and informed Ms. Walsh that she would be unable to leave the store with the flagged images.
“The manager came down and reiterated that I could not have the photos because they were against Walmart policy,” she said.
“When I questioned what the policy was, they couldn’t tell me.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalpost.com ...
I agree. It can mitigate damages in a major lawsuit. The execs at Wal-Mart certainly aren’t stupid.
A lot of it is @$$-covering; if some overzealous prosecutor decides a naked-baby picture is port, then the shop and staff could face criminal charges.
Back when I was running a lab, I saw so many naked babies that I just didn’t pay any attention to the pictures except for technical issues (dust, colour balance, etc).
One of my staffers pointed out why nearly every parent takes naked baby pictures; it’s because babies are usually at their happiest when they have nothing on, so the pictures look better. Even if it’s composed so that no naughty bits are visible, the pictures almost always turn out better if the kid is starkers. I’ve notice that this is generally true of most children under the age of five.
It’s true. My little sister loved nothing more than to run out of the front door naked when she was 3 or 4 years old. My mother thought it was funny, but my father did not.
One of the best pictures we have of my younger daughter is her discovery of the other naked baby in the mirror leaned against the wall. Just barely crawling, came around the corner and found this exciting new person!
Love her expression.
We have a picture of me as a kid a few years old, standing up in the tub, full-frontal nude, clearly screaming and crying blue murder at Mom and Dad. They were standing back enough that there wasn’t much to see other than that. They had it processed without any trouble. Mom and I (and Dad when he was still alive) have, even while we laughed at the memory, often talked about the furor that one might cause now.
My sister worked in the photoshop at a local grocery chain. This one did digital and film. They had to check every print there. She said that was the worst part of the job because of the sick things people took pictures of.
My little sister loved nothing more than to run out of the front door naked when she was 3 or 4 years old.
That’s why we live on the ranch, surrounded by forest, 4 miles of dirt from the highway.
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10204861247119137
In many cases that was true. Mostly it was boring stuff though; our best customers were real estate agents and property appraisers taking pictures of houses & buildings every day.
The worst were the medical photos from the hospital across the street- we all dreaded handling films from the burn centre. They warned us about those so we could block the window before the prints came out.
I’ve been to NL and loved it...but you’re right about the somewhat limited activities available.
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