US Armed Forces Veteran Wraps Newborn in US Flag in Photo...Sparks Outrage

A photographer and Navy veteran is fighting back after a photo she posted to Facebook started an online backlash.

Vanessa Hicks said she had no idea her photo would be considered controversial. The photo, from a military family’s newborn photo shoot, showed a newborn infant wrapped in an American flag held by his father, who was in his military uniform.

Hicks, a Navy veteran herself and the wife of an active-duty Navy member, said her intention was to honor the flag as well as her clients, who wanted to incorporate their military service in the photo shoot.

“This is what he was fighting for, his son wrapped in an American flag,” Hicks told ABC News. However, when she posted the image on her page, she started to get comments accusing her of desecrating the flag.

On one Facebook page an unidentified poster put up her picture writing and wrote they found it was “disrespectful, rude, tacky, disgusting, and against the U.S. Flag Code.”

The Federal Flag Code has guidelines for the proper treatment of the U.S. Flag but there are no rules for punishment related to violations. In the past, the Supreme Court has found that people are protected from punishment under the First Amendment for manipulating or even burning the flag.

Source

THIS sparks OUTRAGE? Cops killing innocent Americans, Americans shooting, attacking and killing police, racial tension all over the place, all the smarmy political stories going on and THIS sparks outrage and makes it to the national news?

While I, as a photographer and an American, think it is tacky to use the flag as a prop in a newborn photo shoot...I am not OUTRAGED, nor do I think it belongs on the "national" 6:30 p.m. ABC News...

As a photog, I get why she used the flag as a prop, and the photographer is a veteran herself, but it honestly would have been a MUCH more powerful photo if dad was holding the baby in his hands, wearing his uniform/fatigues, and processed in black and white. Oh, she needs to lose the hospital receiving blanket too.

The flag really just throws the white balance off into super-red land (warm) and THAT is a B to correct. All this together is telling me the photographer is just another person with a DSLR and Photoshop who is calling herself a photographer these days. She sure is getting lots of attention and exposure though...

But OUTRAGE? Really ABC? This is yet another reason why I rarely watch the news.

It's a nice photo. Nice sentiment.

I swear some people are so lost up their own backsides that they will just complain and protest for the sake of it.

I would like to do a study on the types of people who complain about things like this - what type of people are they really.

a reply to: lovebeck

Think people get more outraged about the outrage then the original 'outrage'.

Eta: I also have no issue with the picture, seems fine to me.

a reply to: lovebeck

So some random person on Facebook claiming to be offended by a picture is what passes for new these days?

Sounds like a troll got fed pretty well.

I don't find the photo disrespectful or upsetting. I was thinking there was his motivation. We don't agree with our leaders, we get discusted with our politics.
Our loved ones, our future is what gives us hope. That picture clearly speaks to people some just don't get it.

I always wonder when the whiners come out if they really feel offended or they just see a chance to be offended.

Was a beautiful picture.

Faux outrage, I have so had enough of people being 'offended'. Who cares what they think.

This is really a story about nothing. Someone is trying to make something of nothing.

# news, # story. the media show absolute #.

A few trolls on social media to somebodies personal picture and it gets national news coverage.

total bull#. honestly, who really give a #?



this is a waste of ats server space

After her story grabbed local headlines, Hicks has been inundated by requests for photos shoots, and she said she plans to give 15 percent of all profits related to these shoots to the USO.

Typical. Wonder what she's doing with the other 85% of the profits of her publicity stunt.

What's this! A bunch of so-called patriots getting their American Flag knickers in a knot over a baby cradled in a flag!

Oh what is the world coming to?

I like the symbolism myself! I find it far more patriotic than a bunch of rude obnoxious commenters.

originally posted by: Snarl

After her story grabbed local headlines, Hicks has been inundated by requests for photos shoots, and she said she plans to give 15 percent of all profits related to these shoots to the USO.

Typical. Wonder what she's doing with the other 85% of the profits of her publicity stunt.

A political stunt?

Eh?

Your acting like she took this to the medias attention. All she did was take a picture and people started throwing their bull# opinion into it and the media jumped this tripe and made it #ing 'news'. Giving 15% is a good deed, nothing more and nothing less. If I was her, I wouldn't give anybody # all.

Political stunt..wrapping a baby in flag and taking a picture..a political stunt. .jeez

Given what I've seen other people around the world do to the American flag, swaddling a newborn in it hardly seems like an offense to me. It's a dyed piece of cloth, nothing more and nothing less; it's what it represents that should hold meaning.

It's probably made in China, anyway.

a reply to: n00bUK

How'd you feel when David Gilmour's kid was sentenced for swinging from the Union Jack? LOL

a reply to: n00bUK

this is a waste of ats server space

I know what you mean ... But I think it is important to keep speaking out against such PC stupidity ... and keep the trolls and idiots in check

Again, I fail to understand why someone would be offended when someone else is doing as they wish to a banner, that they own. Also, I don't understand why that person who does as they choose to said banner, gets accosted or even punished legally. Meanwhile, the ones who actually do the damage to the land that banner is supposed to represent, get rich and powerful. WTF?

I swear there are some stupid people on here. The flag is the symbol of our first world nation. It is a symbol with a very powerful image and should be treated as such so yes that is why we have a flag code. And this lady and her husband are idiots for being in the military and not knowing the code. It IS tacky and disrespectful to do what they did period. It doesbt matter what anyone on here thinks or what any other lay person idiot ignorant of the flag code thinks. Most Americans don't know who their congressional representatives are so expecting them to undestand the flag code is naive!

originally posted by: Sparkymedic
Again, I fail to understand why someone would be offended when someone else is doing as they wish to a banner, that they own. Also, I don't understand why that person who does as they choose to said banner, gets accosted or even punished legally. Meanwhile, the ones who actually do the damage to the land that banner is supposed to represent, get rich and powerful. WTF?

It's not just a banner. It's a symbol of what used to be and still is one of the greatest nations the planet has ever known. Yeah yeah blah blah I'm sick of hearing how all the problems of the world are caused by the USA and our government! Overall we still have an amazing country despite all our problems. Part of being a sophisticated civilized society is respecting our flag and its symbolism. Some of you are obviously too immature or hateful to understand that.

a reply to: MiddleClassWhiteBoy

Also in a enlightened society there is such a thing as Free speech and the right to dissent
Though I hardly see this veterans actions as dissent ... more a mis placed pride ... hardly a crime to an enlightened mind ... and if there is a law that criminalises such innocent actions ... then that law is the proverbial ass

On one Facebook page an unidentified poster put up her picture writing and wrote they found it was “disrespectful, rude, tacky, disgusting, and against the U.S. Flag Code.”

So-called ultra-patriots demean the photos over alleged "flag-desecration?"

Ridiculous. They place more value on a piece of cloth than they do on the people and ideals it stands for.

I thought the photos were great, especially with the father in uniform holding the baby in the flag.

I'm not very nationalistic... Even when I was, I wasn't much of a flag waver...

But it's actually a really nice picture...

Very artistic.
& a great sentiment.




People need to get real, soon!


But we're talking facebook, it's hardly a UN committee or a get together at the Lodge with fellow Mensa inducted Masons...

The bottom of the barrel, rather than the top of the pyramid.


They're bound to be outraged.