Mila’s Daydreams blog snapshot as of 01/08/2011.
When is too much of a good thing just … too much? A blogging mamma found out that when you add up talent, creativity, cute baby, very interesting baby pictures, and too efficient social networking websites you’ve got a recipe for… too much attention. Here’s a recap.
A Finnish lady on maternity leave started taking amazing pictures of her gorgeous sleeping newborn in different backdrops cleverly made of folded clothing and daily objects. The blog is Mila’s Daydreams, blogging mamma Adele Enersen. Her pictures have been published left right and center, so I’m just posting a ‘print screen’ rendition of her blog as seen today. Go have a look at the blog, it’s well worth it, and not only for baby pictures, but also for other topics.
OK, we all like taking pictures of our babies, but this mamma took it to the next level: she created pretty backdrops on her living room rug using mostly her imagination. The results were so amazing that she got a huge following and people started circulating her pictures in emails, blogs, etc. On her own account, most of that following was positive. But some people showed a nastier side of human nature. Some even took the freedom to say ‘they’ took these pics. Others went on using them for publications and such. A big baby photography contest is even held ’in the spirit of’ where contestants are told to google out her name to get inspiration for their own photos… (Contest which she most likely refused to be associated with in the first place!) Things got out of control and fast!
One good thing is that she will publish a story book showing the original pictures and the stories around them. The book is due for 2012, can’t wait to get a copy and read it to my girl!
Her blog was originally a way to stay in touch with friends and family, just like mine and most blogging mammas’ I know. But boy did it got in touch with way more people than intended to! The internet is an amazing tool for the most part. I was happy to discover her photos and can’t get enough of them and I’m happy to read other blog entries too. Her blog is also a nice way to learn about Finnish life, as it is a fairly different reality than life in Beijing. There is even a cool recipe for a spice cake that sounds heavenly, will have to try that soon!
An ‘oh-so-productive’ day’s to-do list!
All that being said, I used to feel I had a ‘productive’ day when all the house stuff got done, baby and I were groomed all right, snapped a few cute pics of my baby sleeping or doing her thing (in regular clothes on the sofa!), bought everything I needed online, and could envision the possibility of cooking dinner myself! Ouch, did that get reviewed!!! Baby photography and housewifing will never be the same!!! It’s not the voice of jealousy speaking here, it’s humility!!! Humbling, humbling, humbling! And motivating at the same time! (Yes, I WILL complete the pregnancy book before my girl is old enough to read it by herself!)
But back to our topic. This case of ‘out of control fame thanks to internet’ is an interesting one involving intellectual property, abuse of technology (eg: those who replaced the original watermarks by their own,) plagiarism, idea borrowing, and much more. All this is made super touchy because the plagiarised art is indeed baby pictures, so throw in some children’s privacy issues! How will this evolve? Who knows, but it’s worth following. I hope the people who did infringe copyrights will be sued and fined accordingly, and learn their lesson.
For now, I’ll keep blogging (ahem, I should say resume) about cultural differences in child rearing, an endless topic that I’m more busy experimenting about! I hope mammas around the world will keep blogging freely about whatever topic they want and be able to post pictures of their lovely babies.
