How the world takes pictures (Part 2)
The Selfie obsession — If you haven’t taken one yet, you have been living under a rock!
Selfie is a concept that had been foreign to me for a very long time. Not that I was oblivious to it, it’s just that I don’t think it’s my kind of thing. In my opinion selfie is probably the most narcissistic class of photographs one can take. Why would you want to take a picture of yourself alone on your own with no particular background ? Those profile pic selfies, why ? Just go and look yourself in the mirror — you still look horrible! (please don’t take personally!)
Well, all that changed when I decided to go on a solo trip to Europe. I was there and it was beautiful and I had to bring back some proof that I was actually there and hence selfies! But that by no means changes my attitude towards selfies. I just had no option!
Even though the concept of selfies had been around for some time, I first noticed the obsession in December of 2015 when I was visiting my family back home in India after 3 years. As with most of my visits, my Mother arranges get togethers so that friends and family get a chance to meet me. This was another small get together at home and all her sisters were visiting. By the way no get together in India is small. My Mother has 5 sisters and when their entire families get together. Well, you get the idea. Like I said, it was meant for me, to meet me, I was the guest of honor!
After the initial out pouring of tight loving hugs and a few stories reminiscing the past 3 years, I started noticing something that I had never seen before in one of these parties. Every one had a smart phone and every one was obsessed with looking at it almost every minute. I thought technology only distracted my generation but that definitely is not the case. My Mom was giving her sisters a crash course on how to use smart phones more efficiently — creating shopping lists, adding calendar reminders and talking to Siri! And then all of a sudden there were what I call the “Sister Selfies”. Each one of them wanted to capture all the other sisters in one selfie. Now we were roughly about 15 people in the living room and any one of us could have just gone ahead and clicked a picture for them. And so the logical me got up and offered to take one. Guess what! Nope! they were looking for a selfie. The picture was just the outcome, what they really wanted was a selfie.
The fact that it’s not just my generation, but also my parents generation that is obsessed with it makes it even more ludicrous. Narcissism is one factor that comes to mind - if you are the only one in the frame. And I am not talking about the kinds where you have the Colosseum in the background. More like the selfies taken in front of a mirror or the ones showing both your hairy arms! Then there is the idea of a group selfie. I get that because everyone wants to be in the picture and may be there is no one else around to click a picture. But what about when there is someone ready to take a photo for you. Are you looking for that special effect where you have this big face of the selfie taker reaching out from his/her arm with the camera at a special angle so that the whole group actually fits in the frame. Maybe thats a thing, a style that you are into. Maybe you are just proud of the fact that you can hold your camera with one hand and tap on the screen without dropping it.
When I was in Granada, Spain early July 2016, I met this American women, who was proud of the fact that she had developed the perfect selfie grip. Though after mastering this trick, I actually call it “showing the finger” grip. The idea is to hold the phone in such a way that your index finger and pinky hold the edges on the front, the two middle fingers behind support the back and then you have your thumb to tap. When you actually go for the click, to the person behind not in the frame it seems like you are showing the middle finger and hence the special title for this grip. But thank you ‘American women”, I dropped my phone twice trying to master that one! But thats my tardiness, in all honesty it works pretty well.
Okay! Okay! may be I am just being over critical about this whole selfie obsession. After all presidents and dignitaries are doing the same now. Maybe this is the fad of our times and I got to adapt to it and accept it. But then there were some incidents that I noticed in Paris that I still can’t comprehend.
I am sure everyone has heard of the Louvre in Paris. If not, does Mona Lisa ring a bell? Don’t worry if you are not an art connoisseur or you think Picasso’s paintings could be drawn by a 5 year old. It doesn’t matter. Almost everyone there, is there to see the Mona Lisa! They don’t care if there is a statue from 2000BC or a bust of my buddy Dionysos (Roman god of wine). It’s all about the Mona Lisa! I think the museum knows this so they make it harder than ever to get to her in spite of signs all over the maze like museum. Don’t get me wrong it kind of makes it rewarding at the end of it! But of course the reason is that they want you to see other stuff too!
Eventually! after an hour and half of wandering and a bad selfie stick experience, I found her! Did I just say selfie stick ? Selfie sticks make me mad! After my first stop at Granada during my Euro trip, I was so fed of this piece of shit equipment, I threw it away. Selfie stick is a ‘genius’ idea of hiding the arm of the big faced person taking the selfie. Instead replacing it with a stick so that more people can fit into the frame. There may be some advantages to it, but overall I just find it painful. Putting the camera on, taking it off. So I can imagine why some people would just decide to never take it off at all. Just take all the pictures in front of you or of you from the stick. Genius!
Just a piece of advice to such people — “You are a tourist, I can tell because of the long stick in your hand. You must be in a touristy place else why would you have an obnoxious stick in your hand. News bulletin! Tourist places are crowded please refrain from hitting others with your dreaded sticks!! Also please look around before you start taking a panoramic shot with your selfie stick. What I am trying to say is you can use whatever the hell you want to click a picture with, I don’t care if it’s mind control but please don’t hit me and then not expect me say stuff like — why don’t you shove it up yours. Use your hands for god’s sake”
Now that that’s off my chest — I had just found Miss Lisa. It’s a small room with an inconspicuous entrance. The sound of camera clicks is almost rhythmic and if she were an actual woman she would be in dire need of sunglasses.
There is no doubt the Mona Lisa is interesting. Because of the actual thought and advanced painting techniques that went into it. The idea of painting her as if she was being photographed with great lighting effects and blurring background to give the effect of perfect focus and high aperture from a state of the art camera is just astonishing, specially for those times.
But I think I found something else even more interesting than the painting. The people in the room. There was a herd of people trying to go out to the front — shoulder to shoulder crowd trying to get a selfie with the Mona Lisa. As if she would look at them and give a smile. I had developed some skills in taking selfies by this time in my trip since I was traveling alone and of course from the crash course I got in Granada. But I wasn’t going to go through this pushy crowd to get one for myself. I admired her from a distance through the zoom on my DSLR. The obsession for selfies with a painting was beyond me.
A week later, I had a ‘face-palm’ moment when I met my parents in Switzerland. We had slightly different itineraries and they had just come back from Paris. My Mom started showing me pictures from Paris and then excitedly announced — “We pushed our way through the crowd and got a selfie with Mona Lisa!” Mom, really!!
So either I just evolved into a higher being or I missed a certain gene of normalcy, more likely the latter. I will never understand why, but the fact is that people are obsessed with selfies even if it’s with a painting of another woman!
Next up … “The Magic Trick” on Dec 30, 2016
