This really puzzled me.

How can MY OWN pictures file be access denied. (Especially since in an admin on the box.)

I asked my peers who quickly suggested that it was a parental controls thing because I’d put something naughty in my pictures folder  (Not True)

Turns out that Vista creates a link in your documents folder to your Pictures folder so that legacy applications that expect such a link will work, but the Windows Explorer coughs on the link and throws this security error if you try and use that link to navigate TO the folder. (… and I thought that’s what links were for.)  

Now, I’m sure this makes sense to somebody – just not to me