Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

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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For a fee !  Never give it away !

Having just dealt with Haringey for our recent marriage. I would say that the people in the registry office weren't embarrassed, in fact my wife and me were chatting with them about what they do. The staff seemed very nice and supportive people, which I think is more important than some duff leaflet...

There's massive cuts going on at moment and council are getting battered at every turn financially, especially if they try to spend money on marketing and publicity, so if its bit out of date or cheap then maybe they can't do anything.

To return to the point, pics are so cheap to licence these days that a different selection could have been made from the millions available. And why the odd advice on choosing a wedding dress? - except perhaps we have proved here that such advice could be necessary.

I am not sure there is a need to pictorially depict every possible type of person or couple otherwise you end up with those terrible booklets where you have one black face, one white face, one Asian face, one female face, one male face blah blah blah! II think we all know they are designed to sell us stuff (even if it is only the idea that the organisation gives a .....). I guess as long as the photos are in keeping with the subject matter (you don't want happy scenes on a leaflet about domestic violence) then does it not matter!

BTW loved the photo of the shorts and dress combo - so much can be done with a bit of imagination. And at the risk of being too gay isn't that fabric by Vivienne Westward?

Slightly off topic but I saw these a few weeks back and it's a great little folk ditty. Can I nominate it to the Church please?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOMI-eeNs-E

Searching for this week's post where someone's looking for a wedding photographer, I just stumbled acros a link to an old article entitled Will Photographing Same-Sex Ceremonies Hurt or Help Your Wedding Ph.... Interesting in the context of this discussion.

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