"There's the baby right there."
Short version: don’t take pictures at a baby-doctor clinic, or probably any clinic for that matter.
Long version:
I took Nifty along with my 5D to our most recent baby-doctor appointment, thinking it would be a great experience and probably one Nifty has never had. We were to find out our baby’s gender, so it was an extra momentous occasion.
I had planned to take photos while in the sonogram room, but the nurse thwarted me by saying they don’t like photos taken during medical procedures. “Don’t worry, sir. We’ll make sure to get you some really nice printouts of the sonogram.” Duh? I’ve been through this dog-and-pony show before–I know how it works. That’s not the point of me taking photos of this. The point is to document the experience, not just to have a picture of the sonogram results. I grumbled but thought, “Fair enough.” With people nowadays throwing malpractice suits around like there’s no tomorrow, I can understand how a camera in the room might make the medical staff nervous.
Oh well, so I didn’t get to show Nifty a sonogram being performed. I’ll just show him Sofia messing with a sonogram printout while we wait in the waiting area for Denise’s appointment with her doctor. I snapped some shots of Sofia and a couple of the door from the previous post and put my camera away. A few minutes later a clinic administrator approached me and said that I couldn’t take photos there, what with other patients being there. Priceless. Am I sneaking some shots of confidential medical records? Maybe peeking into examination rooms like a pervert? Might as well be in their eyes. Easier to just blanket-prohibit than to actually put any thought into what should and shouldn’t be allowed. Being the cooperative person that I am I offered to show her the shots I took, and afterward kept the camera in the bag.
On the one hand I understand. On the other I’m annoyed at some people’s simple-mindedness and the stigma that photography has unfairly gained in current times. If people would stop to think, is it more likely that somebody trying to take photos for nefarious reasons would be doing so with a big, obvious camera in plain sight of everybody, or a small one that can be more easily taken out at a moment’s notice and concealed just as quickly? I wonder if I would’ve been harassed if I had taken the photos with a compact camera? Probably, but we’ll never know. I’m of a mind to try that next time, but unfortunately my wife’s medical care is more important than proving or disproving a theory about freedom of photography–no sense getting us both kicked out just to try out a theory.
Rant mode off. At least here in The States we don’t have it as bad as they do in England. Yet.
Oh, and on top of all that, little guy/gal had the umbilical cord covering up the vital area, even after doing a second abbreviated sonogram after the doctor appointment, so we still don’t know the gender. Great.
One more pic for the road:
Happy