Mono Monday : : Selfie*

The Mono Monday challenge today was extra challenging because it was  to be  a selfie . Since it is less than a week after I fell on my face, the result is a rather furtive looking shot, but as much as I was willing to reveal…. I didn't use my smartphone because reversing the shot produces an image that makes me look like a serial killer.

Why do most of us hate having our pictures taken? Perhaps our unwillingness, in some cases downright refusal to commit our images to the camera is their permanence. We catch fleeting glimpses of ourselves as we pass a mirror or a storefront, but they are soon forgotten. A photograph, however, can last for decades. It can be the image our great great grandchildren pull out of a shoebox or it's virtual equivalent.  It can be an image fellow blippers have of us even if we have never met. As many of us have acknowledged, we have made important friendships without ever knowing what some people look like. Do we really want them to know? Is that really what we look like?

Committing a static image of ourselves is also daunting. We've all had the experience of being caught mid-blink or mid-chew. What we do see of ourselves is constantly changing. We can always convince ourselves we don't really look like that….

On the other hand, a whole new generation seems so obsessed with taking "selfies" of themselves in front of sights we would once have gone out of our way to photograph without people in them. Do they have a different view of themselves or are they still just too young to have developed the wrinkles that spring into prominence in a picture taken from arm's distance?  Some of them have been having their pictures taken constantly since they were infants. 

Taking a selfie has been an interesting exercise on many levels. I wish I had longer arms. And don't tell me to use a 'selfie stick".

*A photograph that has been taken with a smartphjone or webcam and shared on social media.
-Oxford Advanced Learners' Dictionary