Remember the new word of 2013? Selfie. I’ve spent the last year encouraging clients to skip the selfie… look less inward and focus more on outward.
The selfie has exploded over the internet and social networking sites. People who weren’t taking selfies before the word entered the Oxford English Dictionary, afterwards jumped on the bandwagon and began taking more photos of themselves alone and with others.
Fast and loose photos have been around for ages. The word snapshot entered our everyday language long before the selfie– sometime after Kodak introduced the Brownie camera in the early 1900’s. The Brownie was the dawn of photography by amateurs – unstaged, no make-up, raw and unpolished. It’s the realm of quick photos of family parties and vacation memories. It never became the standard of graduation photographs, weddings, or business photos. Doesn’t it sound awkward to say you’re putting a snapshot on your business profile? Something just not right about that!
It was the advent of the front facing camera on smart phones that seems to have launched the self portrait fad. Just because we can– doesn’t mean we should.
Remember that notable image of President Obama with the Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Danish Prime Minister when they took a selfie at Mandela’s funeral? Sorry, you’re not recalling the selfie image? Of course not. You’re remembering the photograph taken of the event by a professional photographer, Roberto Schmidt, with years of camera experience and expensive equipment. It’s the man outside the photo who made the impact.
I’m going to encourage the web development clients I work with and other businesses to continue to look professional. A professional photographer can bring to your project experience and polish that you won’t get when snapping photos from your smart phone. Look outward because that’s the way others see you.
