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Selfies etc


idun

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I don't really take photos. Had to make myself take some as my kids grew up, just for the record. I do not have one family photo in my home, at all.

I have no idea what has happened these days. People take photos of everything, absolutely everything and seem to have a need to show the world. And I remember that some folks used to bore others with slide shows, way back when, in comparison, the slide shows were banal.

As now there is this selfie thing, and I do not get it at all. I am posting this as a bloke from Leeds was on uk news last night and said he had asked Jeremy Clarkson if he could do a selfie.....JC said 'no'. My thought was WHY did you ask in the first place. Why would this plain man want a photo of himself with another plain man, my immediate thought was, what a saddo.

I do remember the magic of proper photos, what precious things, even  my rather poor photography used to be. Taking them to the chemists, having forgotten exactly what I'd taken, and then getting them back, the anticipation of opening that wallet.

I must add that I used to have a friend who was a professional photographer and I love

really well taken photos, especially in black and white. 

But is there a reason why so many photos are taken, especially selfies. What is going to happen to all this in the future, who on earth will want to see them, keep them. Can someone explain, maybe it is blindingly obvious to all except 'me'.

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Maybe just because it's possible. I quite enjoy looking at my friends' photos on Facebook. As they all live miles away I would never get to see what they are doing otherwise. Once photos are posted on-line they remain there for eternity and no doubt people will look back at them with amusement at how we used to dress etc. I suppose its a bit like discussions on on-line forums, which will remain long after we've gone.

I've started to scan all my old photos..and I have loads of family photos from my mother. They are of interest to genealogists and social historians.
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People are shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seekers, and posting thousands of photos to their social media profiles is a way of validating their lives...."look what I am doing, look where I have been, look at what I have spent my money on, look at the trendy restaurant I am eating in, look at me, me me me me me me me..."

These are the same twats who film concerts or other events with their ipads - instead of actually looking at what is going on, they perceive it through a small screen in front of their face and later post it on youtube. The footage is invariably blurry and with terrible sound - absolutely no use as a document of the event, but perfect for reminding everyone else that they were there.

Photography used to take effort to do well and cost money. Cameras were expensive if you wanted quality, film cost money and developing was dear - now, everybody has a telephone in their pocket that has a camera built in and a DSLR can be bought for under £100 and it costs nothing to use it.

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[quote user="dave21478"]People are shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seekers, and posting thousands of photos to their social media profiles is a way of validating their lives...."look what I am doing, look where I have been, look at what I have spent my money on, look at the trendy restaurant I am eating in, look at me, me me me me me me me..."

These are the same twats who film concerts or other events with their ipads - instead of actually looking at what is going on, they perceive it through a small screen in front of their face and later post it on youtube. The footage is invariably blurry and with terrible sound - absolutely no use as a document of the event, but perfect for reminding everyone else that they were there.

Photography used to take effort to do well and cost money. Cameras were expensive if you wanted quality, film cost money and developing was dear - now, everybody has a telephone in their pocket that has a camera built in and a DSLR can be bought for under £100 and it costs nothing to use it.

[/quote]

Sounds to me like that rabbit in your avatar has started to work it's way down and out, and has got stuck in your nether regions. [:D]

As Lindal has said Photo's on social media are a way of communicating in the modern age and staying in touch, bit like being able to make stupid remarks on a forum.

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Dave wrote ;

People are shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seekers, and posting thousands of photos to their social media profiles is a way of validating their lives...."look what I am doing, look where I have been, look at what I have spent my money on, look at the trendy restaurant I am eating in, look at me, me me me me me me me..."

Now imagine a situation in years to come when your "on line life " is available to your family members or anybody else for a fee from lets say facebook by people who wants to know all about

what you got up to ..Who you saw what you got up to with them or were nasty to in posts and text like I see young people seem to do these days

.
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Never mind in years to come, this is happening NOW and has been for a while.

Plenty of employers check the social media profiles of candidates while considering their application and its not unusual for an employer to ask a candidate to "friend" the company facebook profile so that the hiring manager can see all the gory details people insist on posting online.

Once its online, it doesnt go away - EVER. Those photos taken on a stag night may seem like a bit of fun, but do people want future employers to see them smoking weed and puking in a gutter? Most people dont even consider the future implications of what they post online.

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[quote user="dave21478"]People are shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seekers, and posting thousands of photos to their social media profiles is a way of validating their lives...."look what I am doing, look where I have been, look at what I have spent my money on, look at the trendy restaurant I am eating in, look at me, me me me me me me me..."

Photography used to take effort to do well and cost money. Cameras were expensive if you wanted quality, film cost money and developing was dear - now, everybody has a telephone in their pocket that has a camera built in and a DSLR can be bought for under £100 and it costs nothing to use it.
[/quote]

I am with you 100%

I did know one person that used to take selfies with old fashioned cameras, he had mastered the art which was not easy with a Kodak Instamatic or Olympus Trip, he didnt take them on his own camera but on other peoples so they would get a surprise when they had them developed.

When you are Young, speaking for myself at least, you dont have the necessary maturity or wisdom to see your friends and those around you for what they really are, looking back he was indeed a shallow, vacuous, self-interested attention seeker, luckily he was in a minority in those days. I heard that he died some while back of a drugs overdose.

In 1987 I had a short backpacking break in Thailand, I met and got together with a new girlfriend the night before leaving, bad timing! She was an air hostess and turned out to be very jealous, when I returned she offered to get my films developed for me, I said yes and thought nothing more of it, in fact it was so she could check up on me, I knew, or at least thought I knew that there was nothing incriminating amongst them.

She confronted me along with a possee of her girlfriends, asked me if I had stayed in a hotel, yes I said, the first night when I arrived in Bangkok, she showed me a photo of a Young skinny guy in an 80's suit posing in a hotel room and he looked very effeminate, worse still the room did look similar to the dim memory that I had of the one I stayed in ,alone I should add.

I thought of my selfie friend, another thing he did was to grab peoples cameras while they were swimming and take a photo of his excited privates, could someone have got hold of my camera?

One great benefit of the old style photography was that you had a set of négatives, and looking through them I was determined innocent, by her friends at least, she continued to be suspicious and the jealousy increased till I gave her the elbow.

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Very true Dave.. My brother was advising a younger colleague about a job application and immediately looked at his Facebook profile, which featured a cover photo of him rat *rsed somewhere. It was all cleaned up before the application went in.

I took a great photo (with my DSLR) at the tour de France, of a woman dancing away as the peleton approached while her friend filmed the impending carnage on his IPAD. I have always liked photography and the fact that it is now an interest that is accessible to all is not a bad thing. Yes there is a lot of CR*p around and people will laugh at the silly things they photographed in years to come but I can't see how it does any harm. It isn't compulsory if you don't enjoy it.

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What I HATE is the way people hold up their phones to take flash photos at events that depend on darkness for effect. It completely ruins the magic for everybody, and cannot possibly result in a photo that is anything but blurry.

I am thinking of the wonderful free "son et lumière" of the front of Amiens cathedral, where the plain stone statues are "painted" with light. But also at the Vendée's amazing epic "Cinéscénie" at Le Puy du Fou, where participants manoeuvre themselves into different scenes under cover of bouts of darkness - nowadays illuminated thoughtfully(not) by selfish spectators who flout the absolute ban on photography.

Rant over.

Angela

PS. Don't get me started on these "selfie sticks" that are ubiquitous in Central London or any other major tourist destinations.

Edit:

I suppose the selfie sticks are necessary because people now use such expensive phones on which to take their photos that they do not dare to ask a passer-by to snap them, as in the good old days, because they might do a runner with the phone.
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Yes, it all used to be a very dear do and I was still rubbish at it. As I said, a friend was a professional and another friend, was and still is, excellent. The few photos I have of my youth are mainly taken by her. And as they are just a few photos, because we simply didn't have the money for too much film or development, then I can peruse them at my leisure and it never takes long. But I get real pleasure from them.

The other thing is that they are still photos, not on my computer, maybe I am a tactile person, I love handling my books and apparently my photos.

When I moved to France, and we didn't have a phone and no computers then, we all used to write. Some friends and family more than others, but that was another absolutely delightful thing, that blue envelope in the letter box. And I would have a couple of pages of news and I loved it.

Some things in life felt special. I am 'old' now, is it that, but I cannot help but wonder what is special these days, I mean really special,  there seems to be no waiting, none of that magic anticipation a lot of the time. I see my son, even an argument with his girlfriend can go on all night long, no going home and to bed to sleep on it.

Not ranting, just don't get a lot of this modern living and rather feel that this 'instant' generation will have lots of mental health problems in the future, as they don't seem to give themselves time to  relax and unwind.

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I agree to some degree with regard to modern living. When I was still working the pressure and pace was at times quite unbearable and one of the reasons we came to France. I see the same pressures on the faces of my family when I see them again.

I cannot see how they would ever have the time to write a letter, go to post office to post and then keep their fingers crossed that it would actually arrive.They are on the go from when they get up until bedtime. I used to like getting letters from friends and family after I emigrated to Canada. However the slowness the communication meant I missed out on a lot of details about their lives that I would have known about if I lived closer. Yesterday my sister posted a selfie of herself and her partner in a restaurant. It was good to see that she looked well and was enjoying herself despite the fact that they are both having a stressful time.
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And that 'idea' of stress free France always amuses me no end. I lived in a village that was between cities and most people worked in those cities. They had long long days, and their lives were very stressful. For those with kids, the added pressure of getting them to garderies before  school and then more than often picking them up from garderies at 7, so a 12 hour day for the kids too.

I know that lots is said about women going back to work when they want, but the reality is that those I knew went back for the most part when their babies were 6 to 12 weeks old, they couldn't afford not to.

So if I say I used to live in nullepartville-en-plein campagne that was not quite true. True we had to drive to do most things, and far enough to drive me mad in the end...........but still, we were not absolutely nulle part, although I know of plenty of places that are and I personally couldn't have lived in 'such' remoteness.  So, we were near major roads and the village over doubled in size during our time there, with people moving to somewhere a little cheaper than living near work. Whether they imagined 'stressless', I have no idea, from my point of view, and just looking at them, it wasn't stressless, au contraire.

I actually do not know how stress free it is for those that work and live in remote France. Lots of farmers commit suicide, so that isn't a stress free life either is it? In fact France has a very high suicide rate, so in this super cool, ultra relaxed, easy going country how does that happen....... or maybe it isn't all that?

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I have been interested in photography since my early 20. U used to buy my film, black and white, in 36 foot bulk rolls. I wound my own spools and did my own developing and printing. I had a Durst 36 enlarger to do it. It was a wonderful thing to do. When I started to do colour photography the developing/printing was too critical and expensive for me so I had to send my films of to be processed and that made it more expensive still.

Now I have a DSLR, bit more than £100 though and when we go almost anywhere it goes with me. It doesn't fit in my pocket either! We belond to several groups in our village and I take a load of photos at them. They are put onto CDs, sometimes DVDs cause CDs are too small, and presented to either the Mairie or the club president and they are appreciated. I very rarely appear on photos apart from a few qith our walking group. This is because I have a remote for my camera and I carry a small tripod in my pack.

Farsebook (not a spelling mastike) I wouldn't touch it with a very long pole so anyone who wanted to find anything about me would be disapointed. Same with Pratter!

Selfies? Possibly the most idiotic thing I have heard of in a fair while.

Sometimes I ask people, who are taking photos of the family, etc. if they would like me to take one for them. I have only been refused once, but he was Belgian [Www] and I have been asked if I would like a photo of the 2 of us at times as well.

Holidays? We had a week in Malta in September and I have over 800 photos to remember it by. Not all good by any means, but a lovely reminder. I also put a slide show together of it and the family love it. Some l o n g memories for me as I used to go to school there 50 years ago when my father was stationed at Luqa. Lots of memories from Corsica and Andorra too.

Photography. I love it!!!!! And how could you not love it when you ask the young lady who does the time blackboard for the Tour de France and she then poses for you??

[URL=http://s47.photobucket.com/user/Jonzjob/media/Johns/Ladyinyellow1_zps474d636b.jpg.html][IMG]http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f180/Jonzjob/Johns/Ladyinyellow1_zps474d636b.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

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I wouldn't say life in France is any less stressful than anywhere else. For me, living in France, where land and property is cheaper, enabled me to give up full time work..and hence life for me is less stressful than the rest of my family who still work full time...And I have time to take proper photos and write the occasional letter and do all the other things I said I wanted to do before I got too old!
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I've never been a particularly accomplished photographer, although it isn't for the want of trying. I've done a fair bit of underwater photography, as well as on land, with 35mm cameras, and usually the excitement of waiting for a film to be developed was followed by disappointment when only about 30% of my photos were any good.

Now, since the digital age, I can go on holiday and take literally hundreds of photos, and the law of averages means that I'll end up with a fairly decent lot of pictures. I can also delete the rubbish ones, and have the chance to check on the spot to see if I've got the picture I wanted, and if not I can try again ad nauseam.

I seldom put my photos on social media...except for Instagram which is ONLY for photos.

Selfies? I don't take them, but am not really concerned that others do. My personal bugbear is the relatively recent obsession ( though the Japanese have been doing it for years) with taking photos of your plate of food before tucking in.

As I may have said on another thread, the trend has become so much a part of the lives of some people, that the Mirror illustrated it's Jeremy Clarkson story, not with photos of the protagonists, but with a helpful photo of a plate of steak and chips, lest readers be unable to imagine what one might look like....
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