The Social Aspect Of A Self Image

The internet is perhaps one of mankind’s greatest milestones. It connects people from all over the world, thus eradicating traditional boundaries of land and sea. Along with this connectivity comes the availability of information and instant communication. This sort of digitalization of human interaction is evident in social media websites like Facebook. People are able to communicate with each other and share aspects of their lives constantly. A popular form of self-expression present across all social media platforms is the ‘selfie’: an informal photograph of oneself taken by that person either with a front facing camera or other form of unprofessional photography. It has become such a phenomenon that it was named Oxford English Dictionary’s

I’ll tell you a little about photography. Back then photography isn’t like it is now obviously. Photography took longer to process, and you had to sit very

Throughout Lyuba Encheva’s text one can understand the evolution of how humans capture the essence of a moment, feeling, occasion, etc… using visual representations. One can gather that the self portrait was considered an artistic form of visual representation that proceeded to represent what is perceived by the person who photographs or paints the portrait and the individual who is represented.

Yet now, nearly two centuries later, we find ourselves at a challenging crossroads. We live in the era of the selfie. Our lives are not directly experienced as much as they are Snapchatted, Instagrammed, and Tweeted, constituting a sort of composite selfie. We embrace a twenty-first century of technology, yet one might wonder what there is to be said of a society that is so devoted to taking its own picture.

Van Dijck (2008) suggests that, “Communication and identity formation are not novel uses but have always been intrinsic functions of photography” (p.59). In the contemporary culture, especially among the younger generations, individuals are constantly posting images on social media sites to share their experiences online. This is particularly evident in the social media platform, Snapchat in which a study done in 2014 found that Snapchat users had sent over 700 million photos and videos per day (Lunden & Tsotsis, 2014). Snapchat is a mobile application which allows users to send snapshots or videos to friends with a brief message in the form of drawing or text. The company suggests that each snap ‘reflect an individual in the moment without the need to curate an everlasting persona’ (“Ads Snapchat,” 2015) This can be explained by the unique function of Snapchat as images will disappear after the set time expires. Therefore, the use of digital photography in Snapchat best represents how digital photography becomes a tool for communication, enabling users to connect and getting in touch. On the contrary, there are other social media networks that not only offer as a site for sharing experiences but also enable individuals to construct an ‘ideal’

Photojournalism depended on the camera technology. The invention of the first 35mm camera, which was called the Leica. Before the Leica camera to take a professional photograph you had to use bulky equipment. As Mary Panzer, 2005 states “Photojournalism also relied on the development of a kind of camera that was small, fast and easy to load.” The Leica camera was sharp due to its 50mm lens. The camera held 36 images on a roll of film (of a 35mm movie camera film). This meant that photographers could work without attracting attention on themselves. They could also now manipulate their viewpoint with complete freedom. After the Leica camera there was the Ermanox, which was introduced in 1924, which was just as important as the Leica camera. The Ermanox camera was bigger than the Leica but it used glass plates and due to the heaviness of the camera a tripod would have been used with the camera. The Ermanox lenses were fast and large. This meant that the need for flash power was no more and allowed photojournalists to work where they pleased. Whether that was

Not many people know how photography started, and nobody knows who thought of and created the camera. The box form of Camera Obscura shown at the right was invented by Johann Zahn in 1685. This example is in the historical apparatus collection at Transylvania University, and is of the form used by William Henry Fox Talbot

This behaviour has become so common amongst todays younger generations that it is expected to take a selfie with your friends as if it is a normal ritual that has been apart of society for centuries. It is also anticipated that this group photo, selfie or any photo taken at an event will most likely then be published on social media. “Visual media such as photography, film, television or painting” are all mediums that are constructed in codes and signs which allows texts to be broken into different elements through analysis, an artwork can be read as a text through these codes that we recognize and comprehend, this also allows us to note the meaning of its construction. (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009, p.464). Visual media is often read like text through its code, signs and symbols which allows the text to be read. This is also achieved through the denotative meaning of an image which is the “face to face meaning” which is interpreting was is visually presented in front of you (Sturken & Cartwright, 2009,

While we think of photography as a fairly modern invention, that is simply not true. In fact, there are documents on the underlying principle behind photography dating back to as early as the Fifth Century, B.C. The first recorded instance of a photographic image was found in 5th Century China. During that time, Chinese philosopher and scholar Mo-Ti described how light passing through a pinhole into a dark room created an inverted, full color image on the opposite wall. Mo-Ti the room he used to produce this

Digital photography has been put together with social media applications much like Instagram. Instagram allows the user to instantly share their photographs on social media networking site. Hence, it provides the user with several digital photographic filters to use and possibilities for other manipulations. For example, cropping, cropping provides the user with user with easily used tools but it is also a constrained environment (Zappavigna, 2016) as there are restrictions, for example, on image dimension. The types of photographs made out that the selfie is the most common type of photo (Dinhopl & Gretzel, 2016). Dinhopl and Gretzel (2016) suggest that selfietaking, which is a social media related practice, has consequences for photography

A systematic examination of photographs can reveal many insights into the individual taking the picture. For example, Dijck (2008) explains that picture taking has been widely used as a way for people to save memories of events, a tool for communication and experience, and more recently, as a tool for identity development. For example, in the 20th century, people used photography to save memories to remember their lives (Dijck,2008). As time moved forward it evolved into using photography to communicate with others by sharing their experiences with social media. By using social media like Twitter for example, people share different types of pictures from selfies, to video game screenshots, to a photograph of a new jacket; which occurs not just in the United States but, all over the world (Thelwall, Goriunvova, Vis, Faulkner, Burns, Aulich, Mas-Bleda,

Furthermore, in Peter Buses’ book, The Camera Does the Rest: How Polaroid Changes Photography, he gives a complete breakdown of the cultural importance of the Polaroid Camera. Buse argues that the Polaroid Cameras central focus is much less about picture taking or the finished photographic product. Instead, the Polaroid focuses on the experiences that surround that image and the ability to quickly and easily produce a relic to commemorate the moments captured. The Polaroid produces an intimate relationship between the photographer, photograph, and subject which made it perfect for family gatherings, parties, and even intimate sexual images. The Polaroid Camera became the most social and participative camera ever created, it invited society

In part one of lecture we learned that the first photograph ever taken was by a man named Louis Daguerre. Daguerre set his camera obscura on his windowsill overlooking a

Whether it is social media, music videos, television, movies or magazines, a stream of social pressures is ever-present. It has become such common practice that regardless of what gets put up in the air, is taken as truth, and taken very seriously by many. Models, actors, the rich and the famous have all been in a race to let more of the world’s population know that they are the closest a human has ever been to perfection in terms of appearance. Through the use of photographers that know the greatest angles and provide the best possible lighting, photo shoots hide flaws. In addition to image editing software and even airbrushing, every wrinkle and imperfection are covered up and out of sight. The issue that has been growing alongside this trend is ultimately self-esteem issues, which has been inflicted on the masses of society. Unrealistic goals are shown as easy to obtain, persuading young people all over the globe to try to reach them, imposing great health risks (Slater, Tiggemann, Firth & Hawkins, 2012). Since the perfect people are put out as norms within society, the majority of the society doesn’t feel normal. Opinions have changed and/or formed over time on physical appearances, such as weight, lack of features, muscle mass and even amount of pubic hair. The harsh requirements being

Can the complete control of our image we gain with the “selfie” be considered a form of coping that we use in order to deal with this misrecognition between our self-image and Ideal-I?