I am no pugilist. I cannot understand how two people can go into a ring and knock seven bells out of each other in the name of sport but I am told it is character building and that seems to be the case with Kellie Maloney whose name and photographs have been plastered over the media in the last ten days or so.

Photojournalism is or used to be an honourable profession that used images to tell compelling stories. Think of Don McCullin for instance. His reportage from battlefields showed a rawness and honesty of the travail’s of war in both the impact on armed forces and that of the peoples caught up in the conflicts he reported on. Photography has been used to expose the truths of situations far away from us and the power of the information conveyed can have lasting impressions on many different levels. Nick Ut with his image of the young girl caught up in a napalm attack that the US air force had got wrong is one image that springs to mind. Such photographic reportage is an honourable affair.

What then of the likes of the photographers and so called journalists that invaded the lives of Kellie and her family? What purpose did they fulfil? The only one that comes to mind is to satisfy the prurient interest of the uneducated and bigoted members of our community that they seek to serve. What public service has been enriched by exposing a private and significantly emotional transitional experience to people who had no knowledge of Kellie beforehand? Absolutely none in my opinion.

I think it is a travesty that fellow professional photographers can and do invade the lives of individuals to satisfy the ignorant. I am all for exposing scams and crooks and 40 years ago I used to take surveillance photographs of crooks going about their business. That was fair game. They were up to no good and the photographic evidence was essential for satisfactory legal proceedings, but someone undergoing the odyssey of synchronising their mind with their body? I think not.

What purpose has this exposure fulfilled other than increased the circulation maybe of the papers and their on-line variants? I suppose Kellie’s lifetime experience of promoting boxing has taught her to be frightened of no one but can the same be said of her poor family who have been dragged into this?

It saddens me that as I embark on a new professional career in photography that there are those amongst us that would stoop so low as create additional and unwarranted torment for people who already have huge emotional issues to manage. There is nothing new here but Christine Jorgensen, Dawn Symmons, April Ashley, Caroline Cossey and no doubt thousands more have suffered at the hands of the free press. One exceptional photographer comes to mind though Christer Stromholm, with his work’ Les Amies de place Blanche’. I would suggest that the photographers who helped expose Kellie could learn a thing or two if they read this book.

Shame on you.