A selfie is a photo of yourself, taken by yourself, and it must include your head and can be taken with any camera... preferably a smartphone.
On weekdays, I don't take photos because I'm in uniform and it feels weird. However, on weekends, depending on what I'm doing, I take around 5-10 different pictures because there's most likely a few similar photos of each. I usually post selfies on social media to mark good memories and days out with friends, although the majority of the time I post ones of myself and I only post the nicest ones.
I think taking selfies has become so popular because people can see themselves and so they want to make themselves look good. People might also take selfies to post or record what they're doing in the day. One of the downsides to taking selfies and posting them is when people only base how good it is on likes and comments. This can lead to low self-esteem and/or a different attitude online compared to real-life.
On weekdays, I don't take photos because I'm in uniform and it feels weird. However, on weekends, depending on what I'm doing, I take around 5-10 different pictures because there's most likely a few similar photos of each. I usually post selfies on social media to mark good memories and days out with friends, although the majority of the time I post ones of myself and I only post the nicest ones.
I think taking selfies has become so popular because people can see themselves and so they want to make themselves look good. People might also take selfies to post or record what they're doing in the day. One of the downsides to taking selfies and posting them is when people only base how good it is on likes and comments. This can lead to low self-esteem and/or a different attitude online compared to real-life.
A selfie and a self portrait
In my opinion, there is quite a big difference between a selfie and a self portrait. I would say that there are many different 'rules' to a selfie, that a self portrait doesn't have. Just because both pictures include a person taking a picture of their self, doesn't mean they're the same. I believe that the photo on the left is a selfie because it has been taken by the same person that's also in the photo, the camera lens has been turned on them and their body is in the frame. The photo on the right is not a selfie because the photo's being taken by a different person from the one in the photo although it is a picture of someone taking a selfie.
Vivian Maier
Vivian Maier was an extremely secretive photographer who only became famous after her death. John Maloof found her 150,000 negatives in an auction and found out a lot about her. Maier was very strange because she never printed a single one of her photos
--Me
Curating an exhibition
Congratulations on a very successful presentation. I enjoyed watching you collaborate on the task. You thought carefully about how to select and sequence Maier's photographs and your arrangement helped to create meaning. The idea of having the pictures arranged according to the level of disguise (and visibility) of Maier's face was very effective. Well done!
-- Mr Nicholls
After watching 20 minutes of a documentary about Vivian Maier, I gathered lots of information about her and put it into my groups poster. Here we were given 30 photos taken by Maier and we had to carefully look at them and sort them into groups such as "black and white" and "colour" or "shadows" and "people". My group chose "shadows" etc. we cut them out and rearranged only 15 of the photos to make the layout look as if the shadows on the left represent Maier's secrecy and they gradually become clearer towards the right which represents her fame after she died.
During the task, the group I worked in were very collaborative and we moved past many disagreements by compromising and merging ideas such as instead of having only shadows or only faces, we put them together. We made a few thoughtful decisions around naming the exhibition, we had 'The dark side of Vivian Maier' and 'Vivian Maier, Out of the shadows' however, 'Into the light' sounded best because of her history and her path to fame.
In my opinion, the presentation was successful because everyone in the group had something to say and we had prepared it well. The way we had laid out the photos made it very easy for our audience to understand the idea of our exhibition and the information on the exhibition mock up was very clear. After the presentation, we were asked many questions which showed the audience was engaged by our ideas.
Out of the whole task, the most challenging aspects I found were finding a good title, and deciding how to arrange the photos. If we were to do this again, I would most likely rearrange different photos into a more memorable pattern and write another paragraph for other people in my group to read out.
During the task, the group I worked in were very collaborative and we moved past many disagreements by compromising and merging ideas such as instead of having only shadows or only faces, we put them together. We made a few thoughtful decisions around naming the exhibition, we had 'The dark side of Vivian Maier' and 'Vivian Maier, Out of the shadows' however, 'Into the light' sounded best because of her history and her path to fame.
In my opinion, the presentation was successful because everyone in the group had something to say and we had prepared it well. The way we had laid out the photos made it very easy for our audience to understand the idea of our exhibition and the information on the exhibition mock up was very clear. After the presentation, we were asked many questions which showed the audience was engaged by our ideas.
Out of the whole task, the most challenging aspects I found were finding a good title, and deciding how to arrange the photos. If we were to do this again, I would most likely rearrange different photos into a more memorable pattern and write another paragraph for other people in my group to read out.
Kenneth Josephson
Selfie assessment
In Friedlander's photo, I see a silhouette of the photographer in what seems to be a kind of reflection. In the image there is quite a lot of contrast with the white car compared to the dark silhouettes. It seems to be a very geometric image because of all the horizontal and vertical lines, portraying a type of frame.
In Woodman's photo, I can also see similar geometric lines like in Friedlander's. There seems to be people hiding behind boxes and paper which creates a sense of uncanny along with the image being an unsettling monochrome. Woodman has taken this photo in a way so that we cannot see beyond the walls, also hiding people. In a way this link to the title given to the photo: Angel Series because we associate angels with heaven and other mystical creatures we've never seen because we can also not see the people in this photo.
In Josephson's photo, I can see many different forms of framing including the viewfinder and the windows. Josephson's photo works in a different way compared to Woodman's and Friedlander's because although they're all monochrome and framed in a geometric theme , his photo includes many more organic lines and forms of contrast. In Josephson's photo, he seems to have picked out a hand in the viewfinder. This organic shape being isolated from the rest of the photo breaks down the geometric theme and the black frame around it evens out the contrasting black and white.
The composition of Woodman's is unusual compared to Friedlander's photo. This is because of the framing of the people.
In Friedlander's, there are two people standing outside who seem to be looking in a shop window. In this image, the shop window, the door, and the structures behind act as frames because they're outside whereas in Woodman's image, because it has been taken inside, the only type of framing seems to be the door. Making the image much simpler and less interesting.
One thing I found surprising in Friedlander's photo was that the whole image is a reflection. The photographer had lined the image up almost perfectly to include the different forms of reflection: Mirrors, and windows. Woodman's photo is a bit puzzling because I don't quite understand the meaning behind the image, making it a little unsettling and mysterious. Josephson's photo seemed to be unexpected because before I realised Josephson was holding a viewfinder, it just looked like a picture of a hand.
Out of all three of the photos I prefer Friedlander's photo because of how well the reflections worked in the window and the mirror. Some of the features in this photo may influence my work in reflections because I would like to attempt looking through glass into a mirror in a similar way to Friedlander.
In Woodman's photo, I can also see similar geometric lines like in Friedlander's. There seems to be people hiding behind boxes and paper which creates a sense of uncanny along with the image being an unsettling monochrome. Woodman has taken this photo in a way so that we cannot see beyond the walls, also hiding people. In a way this link to the title given to the photo: Angel Series because we associate angels with heaven and other mystical creatures we've never seen because we can also not see the people in this photo.
In Josephson's photo, I can see many different forms of framing including the viewfinder and the windows. Josephson's photo works in a different way compared to Woodman's and Friedlander's because although they're all monochrome and framed in a geometric theme , his photo includes many more organic lines and forms of contrast. In Josephson's photo, he seems to have picked out a hand in the viewfinder. This organic shape being isolated from the rest of the photo breaks down the geometric theme and the black frame around it evens out the contrasting black and white.
The composition of Woodman's is unusual compared to Friedlander's photo. This is because of the framing of the people.
In Friedlander's, there are two people standing outside who seem to be looking in a shop window. In this image, the shop window, the door, and the structures behind act as frames because they're outside whereas in Woodman's image, because it has been taken inside, the only type of framing seems to be the door. Making the image much simpler and less interesting.
One thing I found surprising in Friedlander's photo was that the whole image is a reflection. The photographer had lined the image up almost perfectly to include the different forms of reflection: Mirrors, and windows. Woodman's photo is a bit puzzling because I don't quite understand the meaning behind the image, making it a little unsettling and mysterious. Josephson's photo seemed to be unexpected because before I realised Josephson was holding a viewfinder, it just looked like a picture of a hand.
Out of all three of the photos I prefer Friedlander's photo because of how well the reflections worked in the window and the mirror. Some of the features in this photo may influence my work in reflections because I would like to attempt looking through glass into a mirror in a similar way to Friedlander.
Types of Selfie |
Although a selfie may be thought of as a generic photograph taken by oneself with the subject in the centre, showing just their face, the selfie can be seen from many different aspects from masked and shadow selfies, to distorted and photo scanner selfies. Here, I experiment with the different forms of selfie including masked, shadows, and distorted selfies.
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Distorted
Here I have positioned a cracked mirror in different angles to distort the image, causing sections of the image to be repeated.