Two sides of a coin

The past couple of days we have had two rather surprising news regarding our family's public exposure.

The first I consider a very rude awakening. I have always run this blog in a carefree manner, trusting of mutual respect and understanding. But this incident have made feel that perhaps I should've been more cautious. A friend (thank you dear!) alerted me to this parenting seminar, organised by UTM, which uses the picture of myself with my two children.

Four buntings already hung at UTM's main entrance

Two banners already hung inside UTM

Brochures about to be circulated

I called the organisers to enquire about this. Obviously I have no connection to this, and they have used the picture for their benefit without our consent. The graphic design team member that I spoke to first tried to deny it saying 'No we didn't do any posters...' and then proceeded to tell me that she has checked with UTM legal and there is no Akta saying that they cannot just pull pictures out of the internet. I told them I wasn't going to sue or anything, it just would've been nice if they has left me a message saying they would like to use this picture for this purpose. I mean, that's just common sense, isn't it? You are using pictures of children. The parents deserve to know what it'll be used for. In the end they apologised and sent me a formal apology letter afterwards to my email. I felt like it was too little too late, since they already hung huge banners and buntings with pictures of my children without my knowing.

I don't know why..I just find it so upsetting...afterall, they're using it for a good cause. If the they had approached me before they used the picture, I would've reacted very differently. I would've been very proud to help them and give consent for them to use it. Maybe I'd even promote it for them and encourage my friends to go.

They didn't give me chance to consider it, to look the picture over - was i appropriately dressed? Were my children? Were they in a compromising act? etc. They're using it for a parenting course. They should've known a parent's first instinct is to protect their children.

Anyway, at least they apologised....

The other incident that also happened in the past few days was very similar but my reaction was the opposite side of the coin. Another friend (thank you!) found a picture of Adam in the UK Sunday Times.

This picture was purchased by Sunday Times from a photography agency called Getty Images. Getty Images sells pictures on behalf of my husband (and loads of other people too). So my husband has in fact sold his first picture!(internationally!) Congratulations bang!