After seeing the viral YouTube video of a two-year-old Indonesian boy who chain smoked 40 cigarettes a day, Belgian photographer Frieke got an idea for this photo series titled Smoking Kids.
Tom Tack of I Love Belgium wrote:
Titled “The beauty of an ugly addiction”, photographer Frieke Janssens confronts viewers with questions about the general smoking ban introduced in Belgium some months ago. Surrealistic, melancholic and theatrical but especially controversial pictures of smoking kids are used to visualise the contradiction of the unhealthy cigarette and the immense attraction of smoking.
The children, aged four to nine, are shameless posing while enjoying their cigarette or cigarillo. So why kids? By portraying adults as children all the attention went to the smoking. An adult would draw to much attention to the portrayed person. Thus these portraits evoke question such as: is the smoking ban the right way to get rid of an absurd addiction and are smokers treated like little kids who can’t make the difference between good and bad?
Lest you think they’re clever photoshoppery, here’s the behind the scenes video clip of the photo shoot:
But parents, relax! The cigarettes aren’t real. They’re made out of cheese (I didn’t know that you can get cheese to smoke like that!).
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