Photographer research thoughts

Many photographers that either deliberately or inadvertantly capture images of children's innocence do so in black and white. To be quite honest, I'm unsure why, but it seems to be the 'trend' (apart from the photos before colour printing). I feel that a children's lives are naturally very colourful, so why photograph them in black and white? 

I've also noticed many photographers use a documentary style when exploring the idea of child innocence. i.e., Cartier-Bresson seems to hide behind the subjects and camera, as opposed to including them in the images. The viewer therefore feels as if they are looking at a photograph, as opposed to 'being' there, being able to relate to the feelings felt when in that moment. Although the lines between portraiture and documentary photography can be blurred, I really want to focus on the portraiture side within my project. I feel that the close-ups I use will help this, but I suppose ultimately it's subjective and up to the viewer how they feel.

Lastly, it seems as if children are photographed in two ways - angelic-like or controversially (such as Sally Mann). The issue with Mann's images is that ultimately, they aren't controversial photographs - the controversy resides in the fact that Mann released these personal family photos to the public. Of course everyone has seen a young child naked, it's all part of the "child innocence" era where no one cares if a child is naked. However, in this day and age, these images are viewed as controversial because of who the images might end up with. 

On the other hand, where children are photographed with wings (see Cameron's work), or made up perfectly (Vlckova's work) is quite frankly unreal. I want to explore child innocence realistically - with jagged fringes, messy mouths, lost teeth, chicken pox, etc. As far as I have researched, I haven't found any photographers that have explored this area of child innocence. 

Yes, children are special, pure, naive and innocent, but they can also be messy, annoying, funny and difficult. I want to capture the light-heartedness of child innocence.