SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — A photographer who posted an image of a newborn baby wrapped in an an American flag is facing social media backlash for “desecrating the flag.”
Vanessa Hicks, a Navy veteran, posted the picture to her Facebook page Sunday and said she was feeling “lucky enough to start my Sunday photographing Mr. Landon this morning! Now 8 days hold, I had did his Fresh 48 at 8 hours old!”
“This time, he was wide awake for me! I couldn’t wait to come home and edit these pictures!!” she said.
It took only one day before a group sprung a Facebook page titled: “You call yourself a photographer?”
The page accuses Hicks of desecrating the flag, and “disgracing” and “dishonoring our fallen soldiers.”
“The flag is not a prop. I repeat: THE FLAG IS NOT A PROP,” a post on the page reads. “To use the American flag in such a way is disrespectful, rude, tacky, disgusting, and against the U.S. Flag Code.”
Hicks, who served in the Navy between 2003 and 2007, and whose husband currently serves in the Navy, is striking back at the criticism and posting stories of support on her business page.
“In no way, shape or form was I trying to do anything but take a picture for a family,” Hicks told FoxNews.com on Thursday. “I was doing my job. I didn’t put it out there for the media or anyone to judge it.”
“while [sic] I am fully aware of the overwhelming POSITIVE that has now come about from this page, I want the public to still be aware of the harassment, cyber bullying and slander that still is happening. Behind the scenes, while there is more support than negative, I am still getting threatening messages, ect. This page continues to use my name in a now slander campaign. Pages like this shouldn’t exist!,” she posted on her Facebook page.