At just 16 years old, Brooklyn Beckham has already landed a major gig behind the camera for one of the biggest fashion names in the business, but professionals who have worked their whole career to get to this point are not happy about it.
Brooklyn, who is the oldest of David and Victoria Beckham's four children, recently shot professional photos of models at Burberry's live Instagram shoot for its Brit Fragrances campaign, according to E! News. As a model himself, he knew what he was doing and posted the photos to his 5.9 million Instagram followers.
"Brooklyn has a really great eye for image and Instagram works brilliantly for him as a platform to showcase his work," Burberry CEO Christopher Bailey said. "His style and attitude were exactly what we wanted to capture in the spirit of this new Brit fragrance campaign and I am loving the shots of today's live shoot which looks incredible."
While the photos did come out incredible for someone who's just passionate about photography and only just getting into it, he's getting slammed for landing such a high-fashion job as his first gig. Fashion photographer Chris Floyd in particular has spoken out about how he and others in the industry feel Burberry's decision to choose Brooklyn is not only disrespectful but contradicting to his determined parents' careers.
"David and Victoria Beckham represent sheer willpower and graft. Especially her, she's climbed that mountain all by herself," Floyd told The Guardian. "They represent hard work and then their 16-year-old son comes along and it's sheer nepotism. He hasn't done it from hard work, which is counter-intuitive to what his parents represent."
While he admits Burberry's decision to hire a popular teenager was very "clever," he does not believe it had anything to do with producing good images.
"Part of me takes my hat off to Burberry and says that's clever, but the photographer side of me says for god's sake," he continued. "Brooklyn Beckham's got however many million Instagram followers, that's what's attracted Burberry. The people his age are Burberry's target market or the future target market."
Popular photographer Jon Gorrigan also added his insight, explaining how Brooklyn probably didn't do much more than just click a button on a camera.
"He's obviously not going to be doing the lighting, he'll have no clue of the programs, the cameras or Photoshop," Gorrigan said. "It's going to be so well managed - he'll have the best hair and makeup, the best models, the very best equipment, so the chance of any risk is greatly reduced. It infuriates me...I can understand why they're doing it, getting the younger generation interested in Burberry. It definitely annoys me. Names sell, don't they? People who are under-trained can get a good result with an Instagram filter. I suppose it keeps me on my toes. The industry is like that, a bit of injustice in a lot of areas."
While these two photographers weren't pleased, photographer Sarah Brimley defended Brooklyn. "I don't think he feels entitled and I don't imagine he's this spoilt brat," she explained. "He hasn't had to do what the rest of us have to do but...he probably knows how lucky he is."
