The world of Selfies, Usies and More

These days we are inundated with self portraits or selfies on social media sites. It has crept into paper media, too. Not a day goes by without seeing a selfie on page 3. Then came the celebrity selfies and the term usie was coined. Latest is petsie, with pets! This all led me to take a trip down the memory lane. Please bear with me if I ramble on a bit.

In the times of no smart phones, phones without cameras ...., actually this was the time before cell phones itself. We had a contraption called camera. One had to load the camera with a film roll, click the pictures, give the reel to studio for development and collect the printed snaps. The roll usually had 24 to 36 picture capacity. Sometimes, on one vacation or trip the roll wouldn't be exhausted. Then you either wait till the next trip or take random shots around the house, and finish the roll. The development of photos also took time, week to ten days. So after taking the shot, you get to see the results after almost a month !!!!!! There was no way of knowing what else you caught in the background and what you didn't.

In those days, my husband mastered the art of selfies. He had a very uncanny sense of vision and forethought, he still has it. He is basically camera shy, and on our travels most of the snaps would be of the scenery. My mom used to get irritated, "I dont want to see the sceneries, send me snaps with you in it", she ordered. Then I realised that he is never in the picture. He hated asking strangers to take snaps of us, so selfies. Don't believe me? See for yourself.

This was the first selfie taken (no comments on us!!!). This was in Paris in the year 1996. The camera was a Kodak, if I remember correctly, the aim and shoot type.

This was in a train in Switzerland. I think the camera was the same.

 

These were much later in Ooty in the year 2007 with a much better camera, digital, hence more clarity and better picture.

Not bad, huh.