Knit hats on babies! You already know how fond I am of the combination. And wrapped (vignetted!) in a textured blanket... yes, all the signature details...
I read an article on the NYTimes today, called The Digital Lives of Babies, by Lee Siegel.
"A recent study published by AVG, an Internet security company, found that 92 percent of American children have an online presence by the time they are 2. One third of mothers in the United States said that they had posted pictures of their newborns online, and 34 percent of American mothers had posted sonograms of their babies in the womb. According to the AVG study, American mothers are more likely to post pictures of their children online than mothers in any other country."
The article is of course interesting to me, as I would guess that a high percentage of baby photos I take for clients are posted on personal online albums. I'm basing my guess on the mass majority portion of parents who are fine with my using their pics on my website or blog; the few who prefer that I not, I assume, do not post pics of their babies/ kids online in general. Oh, an observation - within that small group, parents of girls are more likely to prefer that I not, than parents of boys. Hmm.
Well, how does all this relate to me? Obviously, the babies are an integral part of their parents' identities. Thus, of course babies are featured prominently on parents' Facebook profiles and such. The expectation of (and ease for) friends and family to see online baby photos may be an indirect reason as to why parents want (to show off) better than average baby pics and therefore hire pro photographers and/or invest in DSLRs. Wasn't there a period, say in the 1990s to early 2000s, when we were all happy with point and shoots? I may have Facebook to thank for providing an accessible medium for people to demand and share life documenting photos. What Facebook member with a baby has never received a wall post from a friend saying something along the lines of We want more baby pics!?
The other, more philosophical aspect of the article that I will leave you with:
"The AVG study refers to the first appearance of children on the Internet as their “digital birth.” That seems apt. From that point on, these children will have two lives: one presumably lived consciously and deliberately; and the other, digitized life, subject to countless unknown pairs of eyes, as well as to countless unknown uses and purposes. And this raises the question of free choice. Unlike adults who post pictures of themselves on social networking sites, these babies and children have their images broadcast around the world not against their will, per se, but before they have any will to speak of at all."
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