Tiny selfie sisters.
Ah, the selfie. Will this be a notable or regrettable advance that twenty-first century technology brought us? Once everyone from kindergarten-age up had the ability to use a phone camera and reverse it, selfies became ubiquitous. The WORST development was possibly brought about by Miley Cyrus, who could not keep her tongue in her mouth when a camera was pointed her way. I’ve seen enough protruding tongues from ‘tween and teen and twenty-somethings (who should know better) that I felt like I needed a glass jar of tongue depressors next to me and a compulsion to bark, “Say aaaaahhh.”
Camera self-portraits were a lot harder in previous decades, unless you had a good camera with a timer, and back then, you had to focus the damn thing on something approximately where you’d be before you ran to the spot and sat for 15 seconds feeling like an idiot while you tried and retried different facial expressions and smiles or
poses.
I don’t know that this 1983 shot was a self-portrait, but judging by my memory of the room I was in, the photographer would have had to be standing where my dresser was. So I think I stuck the camera on said dresser, set the timer, and darted to my bed to sit down. Then waited until I could afford to have the film developed before I sent the photo to whoever wrote and asked for a photo. I can’t believe there was ever anyone in my life who wanted photos of me, but it happened, and I can think of two of them immediately. One has since died and one disappeared long ago. My photos may have sinister powers. There’s a book in that.
These days, you just open your text messages or social media accounts and say, “Oh, good, another photo of Aunt Edie and her (fill in pet species of choice).”
When I saw today’s idol challenge, I was relatively sure I’d never seen a photo of Dennis taking his own photograph, though I saw plenty of photos of him holding a camera. I think he liked shooting pictures.
I certainly would have liked shooting pictures of him.
(still looking for copyright attribution)
(still looking for copyright attribution)
© Michael Ochs before Hollywood Bowl concert, 1965
The photo below is among my favorites and is at least Dennis looking at himself while he plays (privately, not publicly) and is aware he’s being photographed by a friend. It’ll do.
September 21 — Selfie ©Ed Roach
He was a stunner. Great bod, too!
I mean this kindly, but your photo does look like a catalogue shot. Again, very much of it’s time.
In a way, I miss sending off films to be developed, getting them back and thinking “Oh, I had forgotten I had taken that one!” There are a lot of good things about the digital age, but instant gratification is a double-edged sword, I think.
The worse thing was getting them back and they were all blurry and yellow. But sometimes there were some really nice surprises. I remember being crazy impatient for my photos to come in the mail. I still have the negatives for them all.