: Shields sued to revoke the "unrestricted" consent forms her mother had signed when she was 10, arguing the images were an invasion of privacy and damaging to her reputation.
This appropriation sparked further debate regarding the boundaries between art, appropriation, and child protection. In 2009, an exhibition at the Tate Modern in London was modified following concerns raised by authorities regarding the nature of the imagery, highlighting the shifting cultural and legal standards surrounding the depiction of minors in art.
To photographers who refused to shoot minors in such states, Gross retorted that they were cowards. He wanted to capture the moment of becoming —the instant when a girl is neither fully child nor woman. In his mind, he was doing it because he was doing it honestly .