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Picture of unhealthiness
Picture won National No Smoking Day competition
This haunting image of a young girl imitating her mother smoking a cigarette has won a competition staged for National No Smoking Day.
Photography student Alex Handley, 31, said the power of his image proved such a shock he quit the habit on the spot.
Photography student Alex Handley, 31, said the power of his image proved such a shock he quit the habit on the spot.
 When I developed the picture it really shocked me. It made me realise the one thing I never wanted to see was either of my children smoking  |
Alex Handley |
The photo shows his wife, Tracy, smoking a cigarette while helping son Matthew, 20 months, use an asthma inhaler.
Next to her on the family's sofa three-year-old Ella sucks on a pencil as if it is a cigarette.
Mr Handley, 31, from Leeds, said: "When I developed the picture it really shocked me. It made me realise the one thing I never wanted to see was either of my children smoking.
"I thought this made me a bit of a hypocrite as I still smoked, so I as good as gave up on the spot."
The competition, run ahead of Wednesday's National No Smoking Day, asked photography students to submit entries illustrating one of a series of smoking themes, including changing attitudes to smoking and giving up.
Mr Handley said that although the photo was partly staged - Tracy does not smoke and he had been banished to the garden for cigarettes since Matthew was diagnosed with asthma - it made him think.
"It made me realise how easily children can imitate people around them. Nobody consciously chooses to start smoking, they do it because of a combination of peer pressure and what they get used to seeing around them," he said.
Second prize went to 18-year-old Victoria Rathbone, for a similarly haunting photo of a young girl smoking.
Next to her on the family's sofa three-year-old Ella sucks on a pencil as if it is a cigarette.
Mr Handley, 31, from Leeds, said: "When I developed the picture it really shocked me. It made me realise the one thing I never wanted to see was either of my children smoking.
"I thought this made me a bit of a hypocrite as I still smoked, so I as good as gave up on the spot."
 Victoria Rathbone's picture won second prize |
Mr Handley said that although the photo was partly staged - Tracy does not smoke and he had been banished to the garden for cigarettes since Matthew was diagnosed with asthma - it made him think.
"It made me realise how easily children can imitate people around them. Nobody consciously chooses to start smoking, they do it because of a combination of peer pressure and what they get used to seeing around them," he said.
Second prize went to 18-year-old Victoria Rathbone, for a similarly haunting photo of a young girl smoking.
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