Relief for the reluctant photographer

If you were to walk on the road two and a half decades ago, the chances of being accosted by a honeymooning couple, with a pleading smile on their face with their hands extended with a camera, were high. You would have no option but to take the proffered camera and wait until the couple had snuggled together for a picture. Or, it could be a group of tourists wanting a memento in the form of an image. In the second case, you would have to curb your irritation, until the entire group assembled together to fit in one frame and said the mandatory ‘cheese’.

But, now with the advent of a camera phone, ‘selfies’ rule the roost, doing away with our obligatory social service to tourists and honeymooners. Selfies have made people self-reliant. Or rather, smartphones have done the needful. It has made the cameraman redundant. All that one needs is a long enough arm that can one woud have to stretch as far as possible and dexterous fingers to capture the image in one’s phone for posteriority.

This penchant for selfies or self-portraits taken with a hand-held camera or camera phone has risen due to the proliferation of various social networking sites like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Tumblr and our constant need to upload pictures on these sites. This obsession is visible during weddings when everyone is dressed to the hilt. That is prime time for selfies. One of my students has a habit of standing in front of the mirror and clicking her face in various moods and from myriad angles, which she promptly uploads.

For those who think selfies are a new fad, let me clarify that selfies have existed long before camera phones were invented. All the great painters could be called selfie lovers as many painted self-portraits. It’s said that the Russian Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna at 13 years was one of the first teenagers to send a selfie to her friend in 1914. In the letter that accompanied the photograph, she is believed to have written, “I took this picture of myself looking at the mirror. It was very hard as my hands were trembling.” Nowadays the shaking hand has disappeared.

The lure of the selfie is such that even heads of states have fallen under the powerful spell of selfies. One good thing about selfies is that it gives the photographer control over how their image is clicked. The mass appeal of selfies lies in the fact that they are easy to create and delete. Do I hear a sigh of relief from the people roped in as reluctant photographers, unwillingly standing still, while the honeymooners cosied up and the tourists gathered in a group?