Selfies - The New Self Portraits?

Is it me, or does it feel like the art of photography and self portraits have kinda gone to hell? Well, that’s a little harsh, but the point is that photography is not what it used to be. It seems after the ‘selfie’ became more accepted, photography seemed to have declined.

Where did we go wrong? My guess around the rise of Myspace, but to jump to conclusions and determine something that isn’t factual ain’t right on my part. That’s just my observation though.

Profile pictures for social media is where the need for selfies seemed to increase. I don’t know about you but I was always uncomfortable asking people to take my photo so I can have a nice profile picture. Sometimes you just gotta do it yourself. The new era of DIY?

Self timers are frustrating to work with if you don’t have the patience. Since the invention of the forward facing camera, selfies became more common. Apps such as Snapchat and Instagram seem to make editing and sharing pictures easier, all because of the easy use of that front facing camera.
Now, the term ‘selfie’ has made its way into the dictionary.

“an image of oneself taken by oneself using a digital camera especially for posting on social networks” – Merriam-Webster

In art school, the term ‘self portrait’ is still used, as people still treat a self portrait as an art form. But outside of art school and art galleries full of sophisticated artsy people, does anyone actually talk about self portraits?

Art works in waves, just like trends. But I’m not too sure this will be a phase. It may be a long term thing, as people are trying to make taking selfies easier, especially with the newly invented selfie sticks. OR maybe selfies will replace portraiture altogether. Guess time will tell.

So lets recap. Social media, the invention of front facing cameras, smart phones and apps, and then the selfie stick. Wonder what’s next for the convenience of narcissistic photography.

For me, I’ll stick to what I know. I know I don’t like taking selfies. I prefer using the self timer and treat my photos differently and creatively. Take my photo shown above – took like fifteen photos with my self timer to have a good batch to choose from. “Candid-like” photos are so much more interesting than selfies.
It goes for anything – if you want to get great and creative results, you have to put time and effort into it. Photography is something to be learned. I say we start learning it.

PS – let’s play a game: read this whole post out loud and take a shot for every time I wrote selfie! … SELFIE!