If you saw your Twitter feed blow up yesterday with this discussion, here's the background on it.
I was in Walmart yesterday and decided to pull out my handy dandy iPhone to take a picture of Bubba to send to Zach. He was wearing a hat and looked like a little man and duh, mommy moment. So I take a few and then have an employee tell me that I'm not allowed to take pictures in Walmart.
My reaction?
My mom asks "even if it's her own son?" and he says nope, store policy. I explain to him that I've worked for shops and campaigns where I've HAD to take pictures of certain products in Walmart and he said unless I'm a vendor, I'm not allowed.
So I walk up to Customer Service because my mind is seriously blown at this point and being pregnant and hormonal like I am, I'm shaking with anger.
So I ask a woman standing up front and she reiterates what the other gentleman had just told me. I explained to her that I have emails clearly stating I need to take pictures of products in Walmart (granted this specific instance was just my son) but I wanted to know what she had to say about the other professional instances.
She still says no and pretty much is the rudest human being ever about it.
I'm livid at this point because 1. I was taking a picture of MY child and 2. where does it state that in the store? And 3. what if Walmart themselves knew about me taking pictures for campaigns or shops... how the heck would she know if I had permission or not?!
So my mind is blown right now and I'm not really sure what to think.
I'm thinking maybe it has something to do with peopleofwalmart.com or something like that? But come on, pictures of my own kid?! My mind is blow.
I honestly understand if it's a boutique with one-of-a-kind items or a museum or something like that but WALMART?! Especially when I've had to work on campaigns and shops that include taking pictures there. And how can you police people from using their cellphones in a store that big?
So, lesson learned: be more discreet when taking pictures for the blog and when it comes to my kid, you can't tell me I can't take pictures of him. I don't care where it is; My kid. My rules.
So next time someone tells me that while I'm taking picture of Bubba's cuteness in Walmart or anywhere else for that matter, I'll just respond like this:
and walk away :)