For the love of selfie
Years ago, I was fortunate enough to learn my photographic skills at the hands of a master. My father was a patient teacher, helping me to learn all about composition and the ‘rule of thirds’ as well as more technical aspects of depth of field and exposure. Of course, almost anyone knows that the difference between a landscape and a portrait shot is the way up they go…or is it?
I am just back from a week on the shores of Lake Garda. The Lake is surrounded by majestic mountain peaks and every town and village is a riot of ochre walls and purple flowers. Everywhere you look there are landscape photos just itching to be taken, and everywhere you look there are people taking selfies, some even equipped with an extendable ‘selfie Stick’ to make it easier. (Click here if you don’t believe me). It is a trend which I do not altogether understand. Of course, everybody likes to have a souvenir of their travels, and I am no exception. My album is a record of the places I have been and I love to pore over it. Why the obsession with the selfie, though? Somehow it seemed almost to cheapen the majestic landscape by treating it as no more than the photographer’s canvas backdrop in a studio of old.
- Maybe it is the rise of instant photo sharing through instagram and snapchat which have made the pictorial status update de rigeur.
- Maybe it is our lives as homo connectivus which mean that we must have instant proof of our whereabouts.
- Maybe it feeds a kind of atavism which was always there but now we express it differently.
How do you explain it?
Malcesine, Lake Garda
Just a little boat
