I’ve never participated in the Weekly Photo Challenge as I rather blog whatever/whenever I feel like. Until today. This week’s topic: Selfie
Oxford Dictionaries declared “selfie” as the International Word of the Year 2013, emerging ahead of other shortlisted words such as:
Twerk – all credit to Miley Cyrus for bringing it to the forefront of public consciousness
Showrooming – argh, verbification
Schmeat – synthetic / in-vitro meat. Seriously
Olinguito – a furry mammal, recently discovered in south America, that resembles a teddy bear and a cat
Anyhow, when I first saw this topic, I thought that this would be an easy one. After all, I’ve plenty of selfies taken in the past year ever since I started using Whatsapp more frequently to keep in touch with family and friends.
By the way: Whatsapp is one of the best mobile phone apps I’ve ever used. I love that it enables me to keep in touch with my loved ones back home, have group discussions with friends on what to bring for a barbecue or plan for a good friend’s wedding, etc.
But of course, this didn’t turn out to be as quick a blog post as I imagined as my curiosity got the better of me as I ended up learning about man-made meat, watching Miley Cyrus shake her booty and reading about annoying corporate jargon like ‘ideation’ and ‘scalable’!
Anyhow, back to the topic at hand – selfie…
When it comes to taking self-portraits, I’ve always favoured unusual or different perspectives (versus just looking into the mirror or the phone). I also like incorporating some movement and the surrounding environment into my selfies when possible. Rather than taking a photo that records what I look like, I find it much more interesting to create an image that reflects the mood or the situation that I’m in.
Here are some of my favourite selfies taken in the past year. I know, I know, the challenge calls for bloggers to post one selfie. But rules are meant to be broken, no?
Inspired by my Facing Windows: Voyeurism or Art? post
At The Gritti Palace in Venice, taken with my Fuji x100
Inspired by Antoine d’Agata (sort of)
Bothered and Bewildered
Walking through my favourite park in Brussels in autumn/winter
Homebound with laundry
The one that my friend commented that it looks ‘porny’?!?!
P.S. Most of these images were taken with my Blackberry 9900 which takes terrible photos, especially in low light.
Angelina Hue 
it really does look porny (if that’s even a word) sorry 🙂 The Bothered and Bewildered looks like it could be from a horror film (in a good way). It’s very intense! Love the Venice one, it reminds me of Marie Antoinette. One more reason to return to Venice! Still a fan of that elevator shot and the dress totally looks like something out of a Wong Kar-wai film. By the way are you sure that picture is just inspired by Antoine d’Agata? Because it looks to me like you watched that cursed Ringu tape 😉
Just checked: According to Merriam-Webster, ‘porny’ exist. As does ‘pornier’ and ‘porniest’. Gosh! I’ll be back in Venice, this time for leisure, next month so am looking forward to it! Funny that you should mention The Ring (Ringu) – I watched it in Hong Kong back in 1999 in the cinema with some friends and we took a few group pictures after the movie. Weird thing was that the pictures turned out blurry and it was not intentional. Talk about creepy! And nope, the photo above was indeed taken with Antoine d’Agata images in mind 🙂
Haha, thanks for the clarification. I find etymology and similar topics to be fascinating, so your excursus on words of the year was super interesting!
Wow, that really is creepy!! I would die 🙂
Very cool that you get to return to Venice. It’s so beautiful. Hope you have a great time and since it’s for leisure it should be even more fun, so enjoy!
Fully agree on etymology! It’d be low season (wet winter) weather in March in Venice, void of the summer crowd, which would be really interesting I’m sure. Can’t wait!
Not porny but perhaps erotic 🙂 My fave is the laundry shot so perhaps that says something about me!!
Ah, erotic is a much better adjective. I was discussing with a friend that this is perhaps because the eyes are not shown in this photo, thus somehow leaving the viewer ‘free’ to gaze at the body. I find portraits quite interesting – they tell you something about the sitter, as well as the painter/photographer; and how people react upon seeing the portraits tells you a little about them too!
Indeed. And ‘free’ is right. You put the image in the public domain. We normally look first at the eyes. The eyes are out of frame so we are left with a white blouse. A blouse itself is pretty uninteresting. So the mind is invited to speculate what is hidden beneath. There is nothing explicit – it’s all in the mind. Hence erotic not porny. Contrast the Egon Schiele works you posted. I studied Schiele at university. Is it porn? Discuss 😉. As for what it tells us about painter (photographer) / sitter, well you are both!!
And the mind, left to its own, can be a naughty thing! I only learned about Schiele last year and after I got past my initial discomfort, I find his works really intriguing. Where does one draw the line with such in-your-face imagery and perhaps it all lies in the eyes of the beholder (and this is all that matters at the end of the day)?
facing window and gritto palace ones are really interesting!
Thank you!
Nice shots, Angelina! I like the homebound gaze.
Thank you! I like your colourful Varanasi selfie 🙂
Thanks. Actually Varanasi is much more colourful than in my shot. 😉
Great choices for the challenge.
janet
Thanks Janet and that’s a lovely hat you’ve got!
Thanks.
Never heard of the word ‘porny’! I’m not generally a fan of the selfie, but we’ve all done them and these are a good selection, I think!
Thanks Emily!
**Love** the first one, and then the last one.
Hahaha.. ‘porny’! Let’s hope that this word doesn’t make the Oxford Dictionary list this year 😛
Really nice photos. When I saw ‘Selfie’ I was initially put off. But that shadow image caught my fancy.
About WhatsApp. It’s a very good app, but a real time-hole though! Quite addictive and quite a colossal waste of time at that.
Hi Aamil, I’m sure ‘porny’ will not make the cut as it has been in existence for ages! You have a point about how WhatsApp can be like a temporal time-hole – a little like ICQ but on mobile devices. But I love how it allows me to keep in touch with my family and friends back home and you can reply anytime you want to 🙂
I know why you couldn’t choose! Couldn’t either! But if I had to put some priority I’d pick the first, the second in THAT dress and the homebound one!
Thanks Lia 🙂
Don’t mean to intrude in what seems to be largely a personal space. Happened to land up here from a blogpost you’d liked. Just wanted to drop in a line to say that this is a wonderful blog, in much the manner that blogs should be – personal, even intimate ramblings.
Will be back – though probably lurking.
Cheers!
Hello and thanks for taking the time to read and comment. I use my blog to record various thoughts and observations, as well as to share what I find interesting or useful : )
P.S. I had come across your blog because a friend had posted a link to one of your posts on Facebook!
Aah! Facebook – the great unifier. 🙂
great job
These are all good, I like the “Bothered and Bewildered” and the “laundry” one. You are correct, a portrait is always an interactive story, a relationship between two entities: the photographer or painter and the model first and than between the portraited model and the viewer later. In both cases if the portrait works there is a communication. Now, when the painter photographer and the model are the same is even more interesting…
robert
PS: but I love all of them 🙂
Thanks for your comment Robert! I find portraiture fascinating, regardless of whether it takes form as a drawing, sculpture or photograph 🙂