Extreme SELFIE Obsession

Self portraits have been around for years but since the advent of smart phones with cameras, 'selfies' have gone viral.

Their popularity is due to the feeling of togetherness when two, three or many faces are close together in a picture. The spontaneity of the moment fosters happy, natural expressions and the ability to take many images quickly insures that at least one image will have all the eyes open.

As far as whether the portrait portrays a true likeness is unlikely. The wide-angle lens used in the smart phone exaggerate foreshortening, distorting the facial features significantly. Noses look bigger, eyes are different sizes and ears look too small. These differences are important because even minuscule differences in facial proportions are quite noticeable to us. A popular saying that symmetry is beauty is really true. Faces near the edges have a diagonally stretched look and the cropping is hit and miss. On the other hand, expression and story will trump picture quality every time and most people feel that a little distortion is a small price to pay for a great shot.

Of course, there is a way to overcome these deficiencies but some sacrifices must be made. A normal or slightly telephoto angle lens setting can be set on the camera/phone (before taking the picture) and the number of heads limited to one or two. But most people would probably not make the effort or take the time to learn the technique. Better yet would be to have a third person take the photo from a normal distance but then you couldn't call it a selfie. It is a mystery to me why many selfie photographer hold the camera/phone vertically when it is just as easy to hold it horizontally creating a much improved composition when three or more faces are in the picture. My biggest disappointment is that millions of slightly distorted selfie portraits are placed on Facebook purporting to show the world a true representation of their face.

These suggestions will hold true for digital camera users. Professional portrait photographers using a DSLR prefer an equivalent lens length of one hundred to one hundred ten millimeters. Some corrective effects can be utilized by extending the telephoto length to one hundred thirty-five millimeters. Beyond that some spatial compression will be noticed.

My hope is that smart phone engineers will someday provide smart phones with optical zoom camera lenses rather than the digital zoom lenses they now have. Optical zoom lenses keep the same high quality throughout the zoom unlike the digital zoom lenses that have the high quality only at the widest setting.

Extreme SELFIE Obsession by vidotion