the spirit of christmas has changed

the spirit of christmas has changed, originally uploaded by Michael Esplana.

as the title goes, i think it has changed. me and my family was in Centro Lavington today to kill some time before we go to the fiesta filipina, lucky enough we saw santa at the food court of the shopping centre, and so we decided to stop by and get a photo of him with ainslea, so i took out my D700 with 70-200f/2.8 still attached to it from the spring nats event, and just after this shot, the security guard approached me and said "excuse me mate! it's not allowed to take a photo", and i said "beg your pardon? that is my daughter that im talking a photo of" and he repeated "sorry mate, you are not allowed to take a photo, there is a photographer and we have signs all over the shopping mall that says it's not allowed to take photos" so i said "sorry mate" and i put my camera back to my bag.

now here's what i don't understand... isn't it christmas is all about giving, love, sharing, santa, gifts, kids and all that stuff, why are we not allowed to take photos of "our own child" inside the shopping center with santa? the answer? because we have to pay to get a photo! and the santa inside the shopping center is a gimmick to make money! don't they have enough money from shoppers that they have to stop people from taking photos of "our own child" so we have to pay? where is the spirit of giving? i understand that they have to pay the person as a santa to sit there and a photographer to wait there, but it's christmas! for &$*&@# sake! they don't sit there the whole &*^%$ day!

it's a good feeling that one day you can tell your son or daughter that hey i took that photo when you are little!

now all i can say to my daughter is sorry love i wasn't allowed to take a photo and this is all we got. i could have paid someone to do it but i do have a very expensive camera that i can't use because it's CHRISTMAS in the shopping centers have to make MONEY!