Smoking Kids by Frieke Janssens

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!).

Links: Smoking Kids at I Love Belgium - Thanks Tom! | More photos at The Black Harbor | Frieke Janssens Photography on Facebook


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I'm sorry, but these pictures look cool. And they making smoking cool... people need to get off their high horses. Smoking CAN be/look cool, depending on the smoker.
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Great idea! Too often I think they get rabid anti-smoking loonies to do the no smoking ads, and it just does't work - half the time it just reminds a smoker that they haven't had one in a while.

In Australia they're about to make all cigarette companies use a standard packaging for their products. I believe it's an olive green pack with a graphic smoking warning label. Somehow, this is supposed to discourage smoking, particularly among teens & young adults. All it's probably going to do is make it more socially acceptable among the image conscious to smoke the cheap brands.
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The smoking ban has nothing to do with treating adults like children. It is driven not by the desire to help smokers. It is driven by the need to protect those around smokers.
Basically "smoke all you want in your home alone just don't force your killer habit onto others".
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That reminds me of this PSA of a child recalling her weekend of alcoholic (and presumably narcotic) excess, with a tagline something like "is sound so good when you say it".
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