Body Art?

We heard on the news last night that Air New Zealand has a "rule" that has been unspoken until it was broken to the public by a young man looking for employment as a flight attendant. For this culture it was somewhat shocking!  The reasoning behind their policy is that on internationsl flights many people are not comfortable with flight attendants and tattoos in such a confined space as an airplane. They do not hire anyone with a visible tattoo. And when you see tattoos on virtually EVERYONE, who do they hire? I have seen so many of them since every recommendation asks the question: Do you have a tattoo? If so send a photo with size and meaning. I often get a note that "oh it is just little" or "you can't see it very well" or "it is on the middle of my back and no one will see it".  I then need to send a note to the Stake President and tell him that it does not matter how large, small or where it is a photo is required.  We tell then that in our office we have determined that we will not second guess the directions from the General Authorities and since they have requested it we are too.

BIG DISCLAIMER HERE. I DO NOT THINK THAT A PERSON SHOULD EVER GET A TATTOO!

It has been a great but somewhat twisted fascination of mine with this thing that is called body art. In fact, I began taking photos of some of the best. I have many pictures so I will group them together in a few different posts.  So first, let's look at what is considered traditional "island" art usually meaning Tongan and Samoan.  Although it is hard to tell with the way I did these but some of these are on sisters as well as elders.

This one, if you look carefully are boats on the waves with paddles. 

The logo on the top is his school logo and the year of graduation. This arm band art was not done by a greatest tattooist as you can see. Many of these tats are done by themselves or by friends and no by artists at all.

This is a pretty good one based on symmetry etc. 

Again you can see that this is not the greatest art. 

This is probably one of the best ones I have seen. 

If you notice none of these have all the colors that you often see in those on bikers and others I guess. The candidate often talks about why they got the tattoo in the first place and often the reason was their friends talked them into it or they were not members or their grandma died and they did it in memory of her. The most common is "it is my school name and year".