Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Is Haringey registry office embarrassed about gay male couples?
I was up at the Civic Centre on Friday and whilst waiting to see David Brown, the new mayor, I picked up a copy of the brochure produced by Haringey registry office entitled "Your Wedding or Civil Partnership in Haringey". That's good to see, I thought, a brochure which seems to reflect the new times we live in.
Once I looked inside though, I have to confess to being rather disappointed. Amidst the glossy full page pictures of straight couples, the brochure includes just three small (90 x 50mm) pictures of gay female couples, two of which include faces.
When it comes to male couples, there are four small pictures, but three of these are tightly zoomed in on hands only, and one is of a row of blurred row of buttonholes. Wot, no gay male faces? What editorial policy is at work here?
The extract I've attached includes all the non-advert pictures in the brochure. Take a look. I'm sure the producers of the brochure thought they were being very progressive by including pictures of gay couples at all, but is it me or does it smack of embarrassment about gay male couples?
I wonder how how people would feel if the pictures of the black couples in the brochure were equally coy and showed only clasped black hands?
Just a thought......
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Permalink Reply by aidan on
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Yes. But given how appallingly bad that brochure is I'd hesitate to put it down to malice rather than incompetence.
Just a few thoughts:
p. 5 'You can only marry in a church in a different district to where you both live, if either of you usually go to worship in that building'
Disregarding the odd uses of the words 'district' (parish?) and 'building' (er, church), and the random comma, this is simply factually wrong. Here's what the CofE actually says:
http://www.yourchurchwedding.org/youre-welcome/more-churches-to-cho...
p. 11 'On 5 December, 2005 the Civil Partnership Act came into force'
Only a statutory body kicks off its brochure text with details about when a piece of legislation came into force. It's solipsistic. The reader doesn't care. And, er, this is now seven years ago, I think people understand the concept.
p. 17, 29 - Why on earth is my council tax being spent on giving people half-hearted information about picking a wedding dress and a honeymoon destination? Do we need local government to tell us how to choose wedding dresses?
Anyway, that's just scratching the surface. Crap design, crap content - from cold and legalistic (p3) to patronising ('planning your dream honeymoon'). This booklet really says a lot about Haringey Council to my mind.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I agree it's not a great publication. I hadn't intended to imply malice, more lack of sensitivity. My guess is that this may be a subcontracted piece that no one's challenged, but I think it's difficult to avoid the conclusion that the choice of photos reflets a certain world view.
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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How many images was the brochure and how many images were used? Is there an accurate proportion of face/hand/body/back/blurred shots to all sections of the community (of which there's hundreds)?
As someone who has done a fair share of brochures etc, it is really difficult to get a balance and a true representation. Was there any disabled, folk in wheel chairs, tubby or older people in those shots?
I bet there's many a borough who don't show that amount of diversity in their publicity material.
From how you describe it without seeing it obviously, I think it's a little unfair.
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Look at the attachment, Birdy.
I understand that a brochure can't possibly represent all minorities, but at the highest level this brochure is aimed at three groups, male-female couples, male couples and female couples. Whilst a higher number of pictures of male-female couples is a fair reflection of society, oughtn't the treatment of each group be at least similar. Representing male couples alone with pictures of hands just struck me as very coy and 1980s.
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Maybe a tick box per shot is needed for future copies? There all bloody good looking so I'm offended!
I left off Sardinia on a map (accidentally) when working on recent Italian range design, wow did I cause an offense!
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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They just look very bought in from an agency on a package deal, and they have tried to break up endless close-up couple pics with 'abstracts'.
However they could have, for example, come to me for this pic, the first couple to have a CP in Haringey, 21/12/2005:
oh and I have pics of the first lesbian couple too - next time....
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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"Is Haringey registry office embarrassed . . .? etc.
Has anyone passed on the comments here? Or made suggestions for improvement? Or perhaps pointed out a better brochure from another local authority?
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Good grief, what you mean the Council don't read Harringay Online? (I did mention it to the Mayor. Does that count?)
Since you asked the question about other brochures, I looked quickly at the Islington and Hackney websites (I need a few minutes displacement activity with my coffee!). I can't see a brochure on Hackney's site, but I'm attaching Islington's (split in two to allow uploading). Some might say their brochure is more sensitive since it includes a male couple as the first main 'people photo'. Others might feel that in terms of balance this brochure may even be too politically correct. It's certainly more authentic in that it looks like it doesn't just use stock photos.
As things stand, it seems from the responses to this thread so far that my questions may not resonate as concerns with people.
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I do_wedding guide Part 1.pdf, 4.2 MB -
I do_wedding guide Part 2.pdf, 1.5 MB
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Sure, telling David Browne counts. And as a former BBC journalist and travel writer, he's well-placed to understand the issues and pass on constructive suggestions. And Hugh, I'm not saying your questions don't "resonate as concerns". It seems to me that the Registry Office are concerned to get this right. With helpful comments followed by some quiet reflection, they can get it better.
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The resonate comment wasn't aimed at you or indeed at anyone in particular. It was just my reading of the reaction/lack of it so far.
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Right I've wasted enough time on this. Here's my findings.
Shock horror!!! The attractive young people in the photos are not from Haringey. They may not even be getting married.
Dropping the pics into the very useful Google Image Search, brings up hundreds of hits from all over the world, mostly on blogs, and most of the gay ones on foaming religious-nut type blogs.
None of them has a photographer's name or agency credit attached.
I therefore presume that LBH, or the agency ('consultant') that put this brochure together has an arrangement with one of the big photo agencies like Getty or Corbis, where they pay a subscription which lets them use x number of photos per annum from that collection. Or maybe they pay by each use, a less common deal these days. Though morally they should credit the artist, in practice agencies seldom demand this. The LBH designer or agent has searched under Weddings and picked the images to fit the brief from the millions available. Trillions. The photographer would be paid a percentage of the use fee, which as a part of that annual sub, amounts to not very much.
Meanwhile, Jill and Joe Bloggs have downloaded ('stolen') those photos to use on their own websites. I am amused to find them on not a few Wedding Planner sites, with no credit, as if it's their own work.
As getting model releases from non-professional people can be tricky, I guess that a lot of these photos are posed by models, who would be paid for their day's work. Some wedding photographers persuade their clients to allow them to use the pics for their own publicity, and for subsequent sales - something to check if you're hiring a photographer for anything, how far are you happy for your face to be used to sell all sorts of goods and services? Read the small print.
I'd love to hear back from LBH about the genesis of this example. It's all a bit different from when I was a girl.
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