HERE I AM IN FRONT OF…..

By MICHAEL PERKINS

BY A WIDE MARGIN, THE MAJOR BY-PRODUCT OF THE EASE AND CONVENIENCE OF THE DIGITAL PHOTOGRAPHY ERA has been the boundless proliferation of the selfie. What was, just a generation ago, something of an experimental shot has now become the global baseline credential of personhood. “Today”, wrote Susan Sontag many years ago, “everything exists to end in a photograph”, which I would amend slightly to read “everything exists to end as a backdrop in a photograph of me.” The Eiffel Tower may have some innate impact, but nothing compared to the validation it receives if I am standing in front of it.

Of course, souvenir photography always functioned this way; people always shot Uncle Bob in front of the pyramids or Mom inside Notre Dame, as if to prove that they had made it to this place or that. What’s different now is the sheer volume of shots (and time) spent just in glorifying ourselves, usually in a tight head shot, reducing the attraction or destination in question to a distant prop or afterthought, as if our facial expressions comprised a kind of ego-driven series of trading cards, with the objective being to collect the entire set.

And so we rack up bigger and bigger totals of pictures of ourselves in front of….whatever, and we go from being shooting images of random activity to snapping pictures of people posing for pictures, getting ready to pose for pictures, or playing pictures back. Popular points of interest or tourist destinations roll with the trend and provide more opportunities for their patrons to pose in front of cool stuff. The street performers seen in the above shot do not work for a fair, a carnival, or a circus, but a botanical garden. Traditionally, taking in the seasonal shrubs and flowers does not seem to call for the services of eight-foot butterflies or zebras, but people will or must pose in front of something, and so these wandering backdrops spend all day smiling for “just one more, okay?”

The camera was created primarily as a way to take visual measure of the world beyond ourselves, and, of course, it still serves that purpose. But one of its main components, people-watching, is increasingly about people who are ready for their close-up, self-consciously eager to publish and be liked and be followed. Here I am in front of….hmm, you can’t really tell, but I like the way my hair looked that day….now, here’s…..