I think it really is a matter of viewing platform, and viewing a portrait format image on a landscape (particularly now that everyone is using widescreen monitors) device creates an intense horror vacui: actually a kind of double horror vacui. The first is the deadspace on either side of the image, but second the knowledge that, if only the image were landscape, we would see about twice as much resolution.
This is really an issue for me, because I love using wide format cameras, and I really want to be able to use them to create vertical action as well as horizontal, but I know that they transmission medium is always going to favor the horizontal.
I think it must be a generational thing. I actually had to work to not cringe when I needed to take a selfie for email identification. It just feels way too narcissistic.
But then posting details of one’s daily personal life feels that way too, although I often enjoy my friends’ posts.
So then we have 3 factors; Consumption, communication and creation. The first two can be done on any device, but only one is best achieved on a non-mobile device.
There’s a blurred line between Creation and Communication… They both require thought and craft. I’m writing this comment on a tablet and it’s an agonizing task compared with the way the text flies onscreen from my nice keyboard downstairs.
The BBS’s pages load slowly on my mobile devices, so there’s Consumption.
Mobile is great, but it’s still no competition when all the choices are in the room.
But it’s not, that’s the point. Most people are using portrait, or at most, 4:3 screens. The idea that people are using widescreen monitors is totally outdated. Desktop computers are gaming and business devices now - whether it’s something you like or get on with is an aside, that’s the way it is.
I’m not entirely clear on the difference between the two. Selfies seem to be more frequent and seem to have the purpose of being uploaded to social media, while self portraits are often more composed and a lot less frequent. Part of this is just because there are so many cameras nowadays and photos are so easily uploaded. However, selfies seem to have a number of distinct purposes: some are just showing your face and looking for approval. Others are looking for approval, but in a more justified way - they’ve been shamed for their bodies, or are looking for affirmation that they can look good without makeup, for example. Others are coming to terms with the way they present themselves, which seems to be where the OP is coming from. Others are to do with travel or other experiences - in this case, there are many better photos of a particular sight, but the point is your experience of it. Celebrities take selfies as a way to engage with people on a personal level.
This is the only selfie I’ve taken in a long time. Part of it is to show my face, part is to share an experience from my travels. Is it a selfie? I did take it myself, but would it have mattered if someone else had? Was it not really a selfie because I’m not looking at the camera and I’m not the only subject? How is Paul McCartney’s photo not a selfie?
While social media is often accused of being shallow, I think many times it is (or can be) just more personal. I may be weird, but I don’t really mind seeing what people are eating, or their babies, or their faces (well, I would get tired of a series of photos of someone’s face with no other purpose to the photo). These are important and mundane experiences to friends of mine, and it’s good to share in them. If I were with them in person, that’s what a lot of our interaction would look like (eating together, sharing experiences that are not that important on a large scale, celebrating minor victories, sympathising when someone has an illness etc.). Facebook is where I most often get to interact with people on a personal level online, and I can go elsewhere for political discussions.
If you’re adjusting lighting, exposure and focus to varying degrees then it could be. If not then it’s probably only experimenting with duckface poses.
