If, however, you do not know what I am talking about, you may wish to visit http://www.anne-geddes.com for a sample.

The photography of Anne Geddes poses small children, often infants, costumed as small fruits, insects, or plants. Although many people find this imagery endearing, as demonstrated by sales of calendars and posters, I do not. Anne Geddes disgusts me. Her work is child exploitation.

As a way of demonstrating what these pictures are, let us start with what they are not. Most obviously, these are not the snapshots taken by fawning parents. That may seem trivial, because certainly most parents are not professionals using a studio with backdrops, lighting, et cetera. Beyond quality, however, is a matter of subject matter.

Many of the Geddes infant photos depict sleeping, prone children. The only privately taken photos I ever see of sleeping babies are of newborns held by mothers in hospital wards, or from the first time in the baby's new home. After that, photos usually center on the children playing or interacting with toys, relatives, or their surroundings. In direct contrast to Geddes photography, the pictures parents naturally prefer to take involve the child's activity. This is an important point.

Arguably, Anne Geddes makes portraits. Many, if not all, parents, also want professional studio portraits of their children.

Her photos are certainly not portraits. Portraits tell us something about the subject. Dress, expression, and surroundings describe social standing, history, and possibly even ambitions. Portraits of children usually have the mother present and visible, instantly providing us with information about them. By placing the infants in costumes against elaborate props, Geddes removes that sense of identity. The photos are not meant to portray but instead merely display.

Sometimes costumed settings provide commentary on the subject of a portrait. Rolling Stone magazine, for example, thrives on the concept, and famous examples from the last ten years include rapper Ice-T dressed as a police officer, the cast of Seinfeld as the cast of the Wizard of Oz, and Gillian Anderson appearing as a screaming starlet fleeing a creature from some black lagoon.

These photos attempt to juxtapose the image of well known public figures against other identities. They are effective in provoking a comparison. For instance, the Seinfeld portrait points out that the cynicism, pettiness, and lunacy of Jerry, George, and Kramer is the essence of characters without a heart, courage, or a brain. The costuming serves a purpose.

If we do grant the Geddes photography the same classification, that of costumed portraits for purpose of commentary, what are we to make of that commentary?

Often, the infants are shown as plants of some sort: berries, peas in a pod, sunflowers in terra cotta pots, with yellow petals sprouting all around a child's face. These images carry the connotation of vitality and growth, which seems only natural as a way of portraying children. On closer inspection, however, realize that these forms (ripe berries, flowers in bloom) are the mature, adult manifestations of the species in question. For these plants, or the ladybugs of which Geddes is also fond, there is no more growth to achieve.

In a deliberate manner, the Geddes photos attempt to package and sell infancy. By using costumes and fantastic settings, Geddes annihilates the identity of a standard portrait and establishes the anonymity of any mass produced item. Prone positions, and the use of sleeping children makes the subjects vulnerable: they are not aware, they are not active, they merely are. Lastly, by choice of costume, the viewer is given the idea that these are the mature product, ripe for the plucking, suitable for framing - or at least slapping onto your cubicle or dorm room wall.

Mass production of images is nothing new, however. What makes Geddes so disgusting, though, is the conspiracy of artist and parents to exploit the children to feed this disturbing consumption of infancy as a commodity.

Doll makers have frozen infants in time and presented them as quasi-adults for centuries. But they never took real children, dressed them in silly garb, and exploited them for a paying public without their consent. Geddes does.

I wish she would stop.

In case this sounds like a "My God, Think of The Children!" cliche cry of panic, let me say that I don't want mass legal action against anyone. I simply want people to think the next time they see one of her pictures. Because rasberries are pretty, and pictures of children spontaneously playing are cute. But a child dressed like a rasberry is neither.

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Last Updated:16 January 1999
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