The Selfie.
I had an entertaining morning sauntering around Angkor Thom, the enchanting 12th Century walled city, and always the flaneur, I
soon found myself sitting in the shade of a leafy Bongbong tree, sipping on a
G&T. From here I was able to observe the tourists, many of whom were
constructing their ‘Angkor experience’ with a mobile phone stuck on the end of
a stick. I’ve noticed this seems to be de rigueur for taking travel photographs
these days. How sad!
Like ballet dancers in a scene from Swan Lake, they
pirouette, twirling themselves around and around, mostly with idiotic grins and
seemingly fixated, and dare I say ‘controlled’, by the digital contraption
affixed to their narciss-stick.
Why is it that the photographer, rather than the location, is
now considered by many to be the more important – and interesting - subject? People
are spending good money travelling many miles to exotic destinations, only to take
photographs solely of themselves once they arrive there! And usually it’s a ghastly
photograph (or should that be ‘digital image’) at that, with a face contorted
by a wide-angle phone lens dominating the frame, and an out-of-focus, barely recognisable
Angkor Wat, or other famous icon, in the background. The photo is then sent
over the internet to TwitFace, or some such site, for the world to see. This is
travel photography 2024.
Of course, there are those academics and other champions of
leftist pop culture that would claim the selfie is an essential element of
constructing a modern identity in these so-called ‘digital’ times. Balderdash I
say! It’s pure narcissism, and they all need to have a good long look at
themselves.
In the past, intrepid photographers travelled to the far corners of the globe recording the wonderous sights to be found. Those visual records, many taken with the humble Box Brownie camera, have survived generations, enabling us to witness the changes in our world that have occurred over the last century or so. I have a vast collection of vintage travel books, mostly on SE Asia, and gain immense satisfaction from the images contained therein; images of known and loved places throughout Indochina. taken long ago by real travellers who had a passion to photograph what they saw, not photograph themselves.
What records of our continually changing world will we have
in 2074? The way it appears now, we’ll have a selfie of Uncle Fred at Angkor
Wat taken in 2024; assuming the digital file can even be read, or hasn’t been
taken out by a solar flash or e-bomb. Yes, In fifty years time I’m sure we’ll all be interested in
what Fred once looked like. Not.
Timmofey
https://timmofeyb.wixsite.com/angkor-flaneur-2
https://www.facebook.com/people/Angkor-Flaneur/61555961536254/
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