Taking more than candy?

In fact, that assertion was false, Kopeikin admits, but then Kopeikin views Peterson as a fount of untruth, from his pseudonym onward. "I was just sending him information to see if he'd print it," Kopeikin said. "Jill and I were like, 'Let's tell him we're thanking him, because we're selling tons of prints.' ... Which wasn't true.... He totally took it."

American Photo magazine dubbed "End Times" the most controversial photo exhibition of the year in its July-August issue, and the two-page spread received a greater response than any other article printed in the last five years, said David Schonauer, editor in chief. Most respondents have been shocked and angry. An online forum on the magazine's website dedicated to discussing Greenberg was shut down because of abusive posts, Schonauer said.

The media coverage has focused almost exclusively on reiterating the he-said, she-said blog battle, and few outside sources have been brought in to comment -- such as Ilene Knebel of Los Angeles, whose 3-year-old daughter, Elise, was among the children Greenberg featured.

"We got a call through Ford Models," Knebel recalled. "I believe the agent said something like, 'The children are going to be crying.' I said, 'She does that all day every day, so whatever.'.... To me, this is the same as if we go to a photographer who says your daughter's going to be in a swimsuit or a ballet outfit. Your daughter's going to be laughing. Your daughter's going to be crying."

Elise stood shirtless on a wooden box, her mom just feet away, Greenberg behind her lens. An assistant handed Elise a lollipop; Knebel took the candy away. The wailing and the shoot lasted 20 or 30 seconds, Knebel said. Elise "sniffled a little" afterward, but then she got multiple lollipops in trade for the stolen one. These days Elise doesn't remember it happening.

Peterson, who has four young children himself, bristles at the notion that parents or Greenberg can predict the long-term effects of the lollipop technique. "These very public photos will get put up in other contexts, will continue to torment these children," he said. "We don't know what kind of an impact it's going to have. You need to err on the side of caution." (Greenberg said that the children who attended the show's opening were delighted to see themselves on the gallery walls.)