Whatever we’re doing in life we feel the need to selfie it, we always have, it’s just Van Gough and Rembrandt took months to selfie themselves. I do love a bit of a selfie moment and when that Tamarin monkey jumped out of its zoo enclosure onto my head I did think, ‘yeh let’s selfie this’. Sadly, that was way before thoughts about removing it had popped into my head. Is this proof that the selfie has eeked its way into our subconscious? It did dawn on me the other day though that the way in which I take a selfie has become a little bit ridiculous and I’m pretty sure I’m not alone.
My daughter created an awesome bun hairstyle for me so we selfied the triumph. Click, click…no hang on, click, click…MUM SERIOUSLY!, click, click BURST BURST!!!! I’d like to think I’m not posing or being vain, but no doubt I am! Even when I pull my ridiculous selfie faces I still take a few just to give me the best of the silly face bunch. Dr Terri Apter at Cambridge Uni says, “a selfie is about trying to figure out who we are and projecting this on to other people. We like being in control of our image, getting attention and being noticed; being part of a culture”. I just wanted to show my friends I had a monkey on my head in that split moment, but when you think about it, she’s right! Rembrandt and Van Gough were projecting status and importance too – same difference!
I’m just trying to help you with some housekeeping – how to organise and tidy your selfies. Filmmaking and photography is a huge part of my world so I can only pat you on the back if you’re striving for perfection in your photography taking moments. Keep taking those selfies of your amazing friends and family and if you have to take 10, that’s fine, just make sure you immediately delete the 9 you hate. If you don’t do this spontaneously you will always be chasing your selfie tail. Just like you subconsciously take your selfie you need to subconsciously delete the bad ones. If you don’t your phone will always tell you that your storage is full up. You’ll take about ten hours trying to find the photo you so wanted to show everyone, but can’t see, because you’re inundated with thousands of the same pictures of everything else (we don’t just duplicate selfies – we seem to do it with all photo moments). This way when you upload to your Mac/PC your Cloud you’ve just got one amazing image of everything to play with and cherish forever. Otherwise you may become resentful of clogged up drives and just delete the lot in a episode of fear and selfie loathing.
