Over breakfast this morning I hear an interesting interview on the radio with the celebrated photographer Rankin. I was struck by his remarks about the way in which the availability of a camera on everybody’s mobile ‘phone has made people experience and look at photography differently. This made me wonder how the ubiquity off the “selfie” might be having consequences for the self-portrait as a genre in painting.
A couple of days ago, following my visit to the Patchings festival, I wrote about my experience of watching a portrait artist at work. In his case the evident idealisation of his subject could be seen as possibly having to do with some desire on his part to please his subject. Is the ubiquitous “selfie” anything more than this? Does the fact that the production of a self-image can be achieved at any moment mean that we feel less of a good to request other people (portrait artists) to provide them for us?
One thing that has interested me for some time is the way in which the taking of a “selfie” seems to be tied very frequently to its location. They affirm, “I was there, and this proves it.” This is obviously different from the classic studio portrait, in which case the location is pretty-well irrelevant.* It also differs from the way in which artists locate their sitters in commissioned portraits within locations that are thought to be somehow generically expressive of their sitters’ identities.
As somebody who has never taken a “selfie” I find that my attitude resembles that of an anthropologist observing the strange (even unintelligible) customs of the community being studied. I am still looking for the “well-informed informant” who is able to make it all clear to me. Perhaps they have a reply religious significance, suggesting that one’s identity can only be sustained by repeated and regular recording of it. I think that I will go on pondering this question.
*It can also be seriously, if amusingly, misleading. When my wife and I had our wedding portrait taken the photographer positioned us in front of a book-case, full of impressive, uniform leather-bound volumes. Perhaps this was in deference to the fact that we both worked at the university. I had to ask myself, however, whether he had ever seen the book-shelves of an actual academic!