Selfies

Tuesday, September 13, 2022

I have been taking selfies a lot longer than they have been popular. I have long believed in turning the camera around on yourself, or even better, your group, and just shooting blind. Back in film times, it was usually an expensive waste, so best to just do occasionally. The dreadfulness of the actual picture didn’t matter – the fun of the moment was captured.

That is what I am always going for in my pictures – remembering the moment, and the moment is often fun. I took a community ed. photography class a while back and every single (other) person was there to learn how to take portraits. A couple were just interested in taking portraits of their family, but the rest were interested in making some money by flashing around a DSL camera and taking graduation pictures or wedding pictures. You need a LOT more skill than a community ed class to be a competent wedding photographer. I have to be honest. I know someone who (in my opinion) takes pretty dreadful pictures, but she advertises herself as a photographer and charge RIDICULOUS amounts of money and people hire her. I have seen people rave about their terrific family photos and I am literally thinking you could make a game out of their pictures by captioning them – how many directions can one family look? How to be pale and washed out, even in the summer. You get my drift.

Anyway, I never want to be a portrait photographer because candid pictures are where the life is. I take tons of landscapes on vacation so I can remember where I have been, for sure, but just random pictures of real life are the best.

Which brings us to today’s picture. We went to Sam’s Club to pick up the not repairable tire. I suggested we get a berry ice cream sundae for supper since we were there. Right inside the door, there was a floor polisher coming right at me. It stopped. I stopped. I just stood there, wondering if it would go again. Had it been going? I was sure it had. But then I wasn’t sure it had. I stepped to the side and it started going. It had stopped so as not to polish me. Keith thought someone was doing it with a remote control. Silly.

We looked at Halloween decorations (which are getting taller) and 50 little tiny play-dohs for $15. I wondered if high schoolers would like little tiny play-dohs. I resisted. We were headed down to the fruit room (we got candy heart grapes, but there is a definite cotton candy taste to them. They are pretty great) when I realized the floor polisher was following us.

I should just have taken a picture of myself without turning the camera around. I think turning the camera around is ridiculous. Why is anyone trying to take picture of themselves that looks good? (Or 15 or 100 every day?) Two things about me and the backward camera. I DO NOT know where to look. I’ve tried figuring it out and the pictures are hilarious, so I have given up. It does not matter where I am looking – it adds to the funny for me. I also do NOT ever turn the right way to get the thing behind me in the picture. I do not want to spend more than 4 seconds taking a backward picture, because I find it appalling and what if someone saw me? Augh.

I didn’t stop walking, which really, really, really adds to the trouble I am already having trying to take a backwards picture. I took three pictures. They were all really great.