Excuse Me, Do You Selfie?

During 2012 the term “hashtag” had conquered the world by storm whereas now we are informed that the most popular word of 2013 is "Selfie", which is used for a picture taken by and of yourself usually using a smartphone or a webcam. Editorial committee of the Oxford English Dictionary announced that the word selfie, sometimes spelled “Selfy”, is the "word of the year for 2013 " and not only it is here to stay, it would even enter the Oxford dictionary

A number of spin-off terms have derived from self including “helfie” which is a picture of someone's hair and “belfie”, a snap of someone's bottom.

Self photography has become very common and popular in recent years, mainly due to availability, accessibility and ease of use of the camera on your mobile device. In the past, people were not photographing themselves that much, but mainly photographing landscapes, friends and family. These days a young person under the age of ten has a pool of self images which is greater than the collection of all photos his parents have gained in their life.

If a young person is taking a “selfie” on an average once a day, and also performs a number of takes until getting a proper result, then in one year these would have accumulated to at least a thousand self pictures, which would reach approximately 10 000 images before getting 20 years old. Some wouldl find their way to instagram, or Facebook, or Tumblr, or Twitter. For the comparison, previous generations had averaged less than 1000 photos earned throughout their lives, and most of them were not self images. This is a tremendous change with a conceptual and fascinating philosophical implications.

About 20% of the population is preventing or deterred from photography and exposure, and absolutely of self photography. Many people do not like being photographed, and feel uncomfortable when the camera is directed at them.

On the other side of the scale there are quite a few people performing "selfie" during some very intimate and sensitive situations.

Self photography was also served for many years as a therapy in which people gradually learned to adapt and learn to like themselves and maybe even love their appearance. In our “Selfie” era people perform this therapy independently: checking angles of flattering self photos - photos from above, below, to the right or left, photos with a particular background and with different clothes .

One of the beautiful processes seen is where people start nervously to selfie and only with sunglasses, and gradually gain confidence, daring to remove sunglasses, shooting selfie of some face parts but not to full face exposure, moving to unconventional angles, to the point where they shoot themselves in exposed and fullness.

At the same time, selfie photographers are checking different facial expressions they anticipate the best - with a frown face, or angry, or smiling, or even indifference. This is very normal: even professional models arrive to the set with a book that provides the best camera flattering angles, different facial expressions, different effect of types of lighting and makeup.

A similar learning process occurs with the selfie shots, and it's always intriguing to review the progress from the first innocent selfie photos all the way until the advanced part of the game where everything taking place in front of the camera is calculated.

Selfie is here and stay. This is not a passing phenomenon . It is part of a new fast lifestyle extroverted and personal expression.

btw, do you selfie?

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