SELFIES: A history according to Doug & Others
.
This recent Facebook post of a photo I made with Darren Jew in 1987 resulted in discussion around the idea of the ‘Selfie’ and my early connection with the technique. Around 12 years ago I discussed my inspiration and work with self-imaging in a university thesis – For your interest I publish the text here and add some images that date from my use of ‘Selfies’ in the 1980s.
For me the term ‘Selfie’ is a self image made by holding the camera at an arms length and angled back towards the photographer.
.
.
Self imagineering and portraits (now called Selfies)
.
For some time my photography has included the self-portrait. The inspiration came from a friend (John Elliott) in the early 1980s who held up the camera before himself and friends and then fired the shutter. He attributed his use of the technique to Jean Pigozzi a Hollywood paparazzi photographer who employed this method to make pictures which showed himself posing with the rich and famous subjects he photographed. In the book Pigozzi’s Journal of the Seventies Jann Wenner, then the Editor of Rolling Stone magazine, was to write in his introduction a description Pigozzi’s self-portraits as being: the ultimate fantasy of the fan in everyone: A picture of yourself with your favourite star. Conquests! Self-immortalisation!
.
.
My use of the technique was basically to make images documenting myself at tourist locations as I travelled usually as a photo tour leader. Perhaps I was a ‘fan’ of the location, the location was one of my ‘conquests’, or maybe I sought ‘self-immortalisation’ through the photo – whatever. For me it just seemed the logical way of resolving problems relating to the imaging of personal experiences.
Using a 35mm Leica rangefinder camera with 35mm, and later with a 21mm lens, enabled wide angled views and sufficient depth of field to achieve the view I wanted. These self-portrait images often exhibit a random approach to composition as precise viewfinder alignment was not possible. I took care not to ‘dress up’ for the photograph so my appearance is what it was – no brushing of the hair, no straightening of the collar. They are, as intended, frank and factual.
.
.
In time these images formed a collection of “This is me at. . .“ pictures. They were a kind of “Foo was here” with me being the Foo graffiti figure. On occasions the only reason I would stop and photograph at a particular location was to capture another self-portrait for the collection. Sontag in her book On Photography alludes to this modus operandi in her comment that: Travel becomes a strategy for accumulating photographs. Travel and self-imagineering was indeed to put me in situations where I could produce photographs that told of my experience – often in a humorous way.
.
.
.
There were other aspects pertaining to self-imagineering work which encouraged my practice. I found that thrusting the camera before myself and in front of tourists assembled at the place of visitation was a kind of art performance. It was a spontaneous act; a celebration of experience that culminated in the ritual of photo taking. Self-imaging was crammed with fun and triviality. And having fun, and being seen to have fun and capturing that fun were certainly part of the agenda that drove my interest in this activity. The technique often caught on and doin’ a self-portrait became part of my fellow tourist’s recording rituals as well.
.
.
Abridged from a Graduate Diploma thesis entitled My Shadow and I by Doug Spowart 2002. The thesis contains a discussion on the artist as tourist and the self-image as a document of personal experience.
.
SOME MORE IMAGES:
.
.
.
.
NEW UPDATES ON ‘SELFIES’
Texas town errects ‘selfies’ statue…
TEXTS ON PIGOZZI
http://www.helmutnewton.com/previous_exhibitions/pigozzi_and_the_paparazzi/index.html
A. D. COLEMAN’S COMMENT
A RECENT ADDITION TO THE DISCUSION ON ‘SELFIES’ (Although I’d say it was a self portrait)
http://www.openculture.com/2013/11/the-first-selfie-in-history-1839.html
AND ‘THE OXFORD DICTIONARY ‘WORD OF THE YEAR’
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/11/an-infographic-of-selfie
AND A SPANISH INFOGRAPHIC
ANOTHER INFO GRAPHIC (English)
http://www.bestcomputerscienceschools.net/selfies/
.
Images and text © Doug Spowart
..
.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
.
.
.
.
Freakin funny. Love it. So it all started with you Doug.
janramsay1963
October 29, 2013 at 8:47 am
Jean Pigozzi > John Elliott > Then me and others > Then everyone …!
Victoria Cooper Doug Spowart
October 29, 2013 at 9:28 pm
I never knew we were starting a world-wide trend back then! Might still have some of those photos kicking around. I remember taking photos of myself on world trips in the early 70s. Whoops, just indicated I might be older than most readers of this comment!!!!!!! Keep posting Doug. Man we all looked so young in the photos too.
Ian Hodgkiss
October 30, 2013 at 8:58 am
G’Day Ian – It is interesting to think how selfies are so accessible now -one of the things was that photographers had access to wide angle lenses whereas most cameras people used had 50mm lenses. So we could get the angle of view to do it — And also the depth of field. You should put up some of the old selfies. Cheers Doug
Victoria Cooper Doug Spowart
October 30, 2013 at 9:29 am