Original girls photos: to do or not to do?

Shooting photos and posting them on Facebook or other social networking sites is becoming common among teenagers in Vietnam, but the ‘models’ are not aware that they have been victimized by their.

On a recent weekend day, we followed Đ.D., a photographer who agreed to shoot a series of photos for a teen girl.

He said shooting photos takes a lot of effort because the young customers often require ‘strange’ positions and a professional crew including two photographers and one styler.

Standing at 165cm tall, H.H. has the ideal body statistics, and expressed her confidence as she came out of a bathroom in the buff. H is currently studying at a university in Ho Chi Minh City.

Two hours later, H had a collection of 100 photos, featuring the curves in her body.

“This is my first time shooting Original girls. I saw many friends of mine doing so. They told me that if I have a good body, I should be proud of it and show off. So I tried to keep up with them,” H said.

Diep H., 18, a first-year student, is so proud of her expressive face and good acting in front of a camera, despite the fact that she doesn’t have the most attractive appearance. She has been dubbed the “Beauty queen of Original photos” by Facebook users due to her voluptuous curves.

While some models are proud of what they’ve done, others have complained that they have been abused by photographers.

Mai Linh, 18, a resident of Vo Van Kiet Street, District 8, recalled: “Two months ago, a photographer who I got to know through a social networking site tried to convince me to shoot . I agreed to out of my curiosity. But when I took off clothes, the photographer touched my breast, claiming that he was helping me pose for photos.”

Ha G., 22, hailing from Tan Phu District, felt regret that her photos were leaked as they fell into the wrong hands four years ago.

“When I was 18, I had a photographer shoot my photos through the recommendation of a friend without my boyfriend’s knowledge. When I was involved in an argument with the friend, she intentionally posted my photos on the internet. My boyfriend saw them and decided to end our relationship,” G. said in sad voice.

Recently, a clip portraying a behind-the-scenes look at photo shoot posted on Youtube has attracted criticism. Although the online community has strongly condemned whoever posted it, the main character in the clip has also received heavy criticism from public opinion.