A brief history of the selfie.
When photography was first invented, people started taking selfies straight away. The selfie dates back to 1839 in photography but self portraits were being painted hundreds of years before. Robert Cornelius was the very first person to ever take a selfie with a camera. This is the "selfie" that Cornelius took back in 1839.
When photography was first invented, people started taking selfies straight away. The selfie dates back to 1839 in photography but self portraits were being painted hundreds of years before. Robert Cornelius was the very first person to ever take a selfie with a camera. This is the "selfie" that Cornelius took back in 1839.
The first person we looked at for this project is Vivian Maier. She was a very secretive person and she didn't show anyone her pictures. All her negatives were sold at auction in early 2000s. At first there was no record about her but then all of a sudden, she became extremely famous. She died 21st April 2009. She took up a job as a nanny and looked after many children. The man who discovered a few boxes of her negatives was John Maloof. When he first found the boxes, Maloof decided to research Vivian Maier but there was no record of her photography. If you look her up on google now, you can find; her work, her date of birth & when she died.
Here are a couple of her pieces.
Here are a couple of her pieces.
An Alien Guide To The Perfect Selfie.
For this activity we had to create a poster explaining how to take a selfie for an alien.
For this activity we had to create a poster explaining how to take a selfie for an alien.
HomeworK
For this piece of homework we had to try and take "interesting" selfies. I chose to try and find things that I could see my reflection in for most of them. For example, I took some selfies in a microwave, a mirror, a car window, a cupboard handle and a pair of sunglasses.
On the 6th selfie, I decided to play around with different colours and lighting. I had to take this selfie 4 times before I got it the way I wanted it to look.
On the 6th selfie, I decided to play around with different colours and lighting. I had to take this selfie 4 times before I got it the way I wanted it to look.
There are many different experiments in the world. For example there are The Reflected Selfie, The Disguised Selfie, The Obscured Selfie, The Photo Booth Selfie and lots more.
This is an example of a reflected selfie. This was taken by Peter Keetman. Keetman was from Elberfeld Germany. He studied photography in Munich from 1935 to 1937. Peter Keetman wrote 3 books; A Week At The Volkswagen Factory:Photographs From April 1953, Volkswagen-A Week At The Factory and 12Pak Volkswagen.
This selfie is a disguised selfie by Andy Warhol. It is entitled self-portrait in drag. It was taken in 1981. Warhol was born 6 August 1928 and died 22 February 1987. He was involved in pop art, abstract expressionism Naive art and Modern art. Some of his most famous pieces of art work are; Campbell's Soup Cans~1962, Green Coca-Cola Bottles~1962 and Shot Marilyns~1964.
We had to do an activity today where we had a word and we needed to try and take some selfies that link to that word. I got mask so I tried to take some selfies that "masked" my face. I tried lots of different ways of masking my face but I was only happy with the 3 above.
My favorite image is No.2 because it is the most unusual of the three I took. The reason why I think this image is unusual is because you can't tell it is me and the blue plastic bag is the main focus in the image. My least favorite is No.3 because the blurry part of the rubber band is very distracting form the rest of the image. Next time I would use the rubber band in a different way than putting on my phone. For example, next time I could distort my face by placing rubber bands over my face.
My favorite image is No.2 because it is the most unusual of the three I took. The reason why I think this image is unusual is because you can't tell it is me and the blue plastic bag is the main focus in the image. My least favorite is No.3 because the blurry part of the rubber band is very distracting form the rest of the image. Next time I would use the rubber band in a different way than putting on my phone. For example, next time I could distort my face by placing rubber bands over my face.
Photography Essay
In Friedlander's photograph I can see his reflection in the centre of the image and another man in the background. His photograph is a kind of mirror selfie because he has taken the photograph in a window.In woodman's photograph, I can see what looks like a door with a hand holding onto it and a person with a large paper bag covering most of her body. Woodman's photograph is a kind of disguised selfie because we can't see her face. We can only see her feet. In Josephson's photograph, I can see a man holding a piece of card over a hand and a shadow of the photographer on the side of the car. Josephson's photograph is a shadow selfie because you can't see his face, but you can see his shadow on the car.
The Friedlander and Josephson's photographs are similar because they both are sort of shadows as you can only see a silhouette of them. Whereas, the Woodman photograph is different because the only thing you can see of her is her feet.
Woodman's photograph contains different types of frames. These are the frame of the photo and the door frame. This is interesting because it sort of looks like a doorway into another dimension, instead of just a doorway into another room. Josephson's photograph works in a different way by making the main focus of the image the hand in the frame. I think this is interesting because you can just see a hand, not the rest of the man's body. Friedlander's photograph works differently as you have the frame of the entire photograph and also the frame of his silhouette. This is interesting because you can clearly see the man in the background but all you see is a kind of shadowy looking figure of Friedlander.
What's mysterious about woodman's photograph is that you don't really know who is under the bag or behind the small door behind her/him. Also the room looks very eery because there is nothing else in the room apart from a person with a bag over them and a person with a door in front of them. It looks like a scene form a horror film. What's surprising about Josephson's photograph is that it takes you a while to actually spot his shadow in the bottom right hand corner. I also like the fact that it looks like his body is cut in half because you can see the shadow of his legs on the left side of the image but the top half of his body on the right hand side of the image. What's surprising about Friedlander's is that you see more of the man in the background, than Friedlander himself.
I appreciate Woodman's photograph the most because although it's a very simple image it still looks interesting and a little bit eery. It looks eery because there are only two things in the room and you kind of get the feeling that something isn't quite right.
In Friedlander's photograph I can see his reflection in the centre of the image and another man in the background. His photograph is a kind of mirror selfie because he has taken the photograph in a window.In woodman's photograph, I can see what looks like a door with a hand holding onto it and a person with a large paper bag covering most of her body. Woodman's photograph is a kind of disguised selfie because we can't see her face. We can only see her feet. In Josephson's photograph, I can see a man holding a piece of card over a hand and a shadow of the photographer on the side of the car. Josephson's photograph is a shadow selfie because you can't see his face, but you can see his shadow on the car.
The Friedlander and Josephson's photographs are similar because they both are sort of shadows as you can only see a silhouette of them. Whereas, the Woodman photograph is different because the only thing you can see of her is her feet.
Woodman's photograph contains different types of frames. These are the frame of the photo and the door frame. This is interesting because it sort of looks like a doorway into another dimension, instead of just a doorway into another room. Josephson's photograph works in a different way by making the main focus of the image the hand in the frame. I think this is interesting because you can just see a hand, not the rest of the man's body. Friedlander's photograph works differently as you have the frame of the entire photograph and also the frame of his silhouette. This is interesting because you can clearly see the man in the background but all you see is a kind of shadowy looking figure of Friedlander.
What's mysterious about woodman's photograph is that you don't really know who is under the bag or behind the small door behind her/him. Also the room looks very eery because there is nothing else in the room apart from a person with a bag over them and a person with a door in front of them. It looks like a scene form a horror film. What's surprising about Josephson's photograph is that it takes you a while to actually spot his shadow in the bottom right hand corner. I also like the fact that it looks like his body is cut in half because you can see the shadow of his legs on the left side of the image but the top half of his body on the right hand side of the image. What's surprising about Friedlander's is that you see more of the man in the background, than Friedlander himself.
I appreciate Woodman's photograph the most because although it's a very simple image it still looks interesting and a little bit eery. It looks eery because there are only two things in the room and you kind of get the feeling that something isn't quite right.