Posted
2/19/2006 05:07:00 PM
by Douglas
"Folk art for the
digital age.""Everyone's a little narcissistic," Ms. Adams said. "Being able to take pictures of yourself in privacy allows you to do it without inhibitions. Each person takes better pictures of themselves than anyone else can because they know their own bodies, they know their own minds."
The era of cheap, lightweight digital cameras — in cellphones, in computers, in hip pockets, even on key chains — has meant that people who did not consider themselves photography buffs as recently as five years ago are filling ever-larger hard drives with thousands of images from their lives.
And one particular kind of image has especially soared in popularity, particularly among the young: the self-portrait, which has become a kind of folk art for the digital age.
When I got my first digicam, I asked everyone I knew (that already had one or two) what their first picture was. No one could remember. I had a different plan. I wanted to see what something looked like. And, I didn't want to "see myself in the mirror with my eyes closed" as the
They Might Be Giants song goes. But I took an interesting picture, something I would have never done with my 35mm, and then it was quickly deleted. And I think that's the
huge difference with digital photography. You'll take a picture of something you'd have
never wasted film on. But now, it's so easy, and hard drive space is so cheep. So snap away, but remember to delete the really bad (or incriminating) ones.