Let's Take a Selfie

Bored with writing academic papers a few weeks ago, I decided to take short creativity break.   Since my profile picture was a few years old, I decided to take a new selfie with my iPad.  This lead me to thinking about selfies as an artform.

We live in the age of selfies.  Selfie is now a word in the dictionary.  There are songs about selfies.  Even the president takes selfies with other world leaders.  It seems, that in this age of social media such as Twitter and Facebook, everyone takes selfies to use as their profile picture and to post on their pages.  The selfie has become the hot new artform.  Many young people, often attractive young woman, make a kind of competition out of taking selfies, often posting several daily to see how many likes they can get.  We see the celebrities taking selfies with their celebrity friends, family and even with fans.

Selfies are the ultimate form of self expression.  They are how we answer the questions of, "How do we want the world to see me?", "What do I want to say to the world?",  and "What do I want the world to know about me?" That being said we all want to appear at our best in our selfies.

Taking selfies is quite revealing for the photographer as well as any potential picture perusers.  Looking at these pictures the photographer sees a side of themselves that they usually do not see. They see what the rest of the world sees. The flat 2D version of oneself that the camera sees is a different version than what one sees in the mirror when looking at oneself.  It is a version frozen at an instant.

When I took my selfies I noticed several things about myself.  My hair was a mess.  Does it always look that way?  It probably does as I'm always running my fingers through it.  Upon closer inspection of my face, I also noticed that I'm aging quite drastically.  Where did those lines around my eyes and mouth come from?  What happened to the young woman who used to be in my photographs?   Who is this middle aged woman and where did she come from?  In this age of youthful beauty selfies can be a sad indicator for some of us that our glory days might possibly be over and we are but shadows of our former glorious selves  I also noticed that I'm not at my best if I'm not smiling.  Maybe a lesson for myself to make sure I try to always smile.  You can bet I combed my hair and smiled in my selfie.  I also deleted the ones where I looked too wrinkly.  I edited my pictures and myself by omitting the bad ones.

After taking a dozen or so selfies with different expressions, backgrounds and poses and deleting most of them I finally got a few that I was okay with sharing. The good news is that my iPad doesn't take pictures as crisp as I like.  This is perfect for a fifty year old who still thinks she's thirty.

Creativity in a Digital World

The latest trends in computers, mobile devices and the web, make opportunities for almost boundless creativity.  They provide avenues to create and combine text, photos and video in ways never before envisioned, and share the finished product with the world. Even social media are opportunities to create communities of friends, and create your own social persona.

Computer and mobile device apps make it easy to create and edit videos, slide shows, scrapbooks and even blogs.  That's right this very blog is an act of creativity!  I got to pick the template and change as much or as little of it as I wanted.  With every post I get to select the topic and illustrations, write the text and even put it together in a pleasing fashion.  I also have the opportunity to rework it if I don't like the way it comes out the first time.  I also have the opportunity to create my own illustrations using other apps if I would like.  It is a wholly original creation.  

Currently I have been using an app for my iPad called Adobe Voice that lets me easily combine a short piece of text, pictures, and a voice over into a digital slide show with narration.  I am using it to make a virtual vocabulary list for my students.  The voice part allows my students the opportunity to hear the words pronounced and they can repeat it as many times as they need.  The vast selection of apps out there allows us to tailor our creations to very specific needs.  The finished product is highly original and we even have the opportunity for coming up with creative uses for the app that the maker of the app never envisioned. 

I have heard it said recently that education isn't providing opportunities for students to be creative.   Some of the new digital apps that students are playing with provide many opportunities to be creative.  One only has to look at some of the photos and videos my students take and manipulate to see that.  Recently one of my students made a video where a cruise missile came in and blew up one of the lab benches in my classroom while I was standing at it.  It was hilarious.  Creativity is alive and well in our students.  I maintain that creative opportunities are an inborn need for some people.  As opportunities to be creative are getting squished out of our classrooms they are appearing on students phones.  No wonder students are more interested in their phones than what is going on in the classroom.

Creativity is My Crack

This is my new blog about what it is like to be a compulsively creative person and how that creativity manifests itself in my everyday life.  Creativity is to me is like crack is to an addict.  It is the thing I get high on in life.   I find that I can be creative in all aspects of my life - creativity is putting things together or creating something in a way that has never been done before (at least by the creator). For me this could take the form of writing, using technology, journalling, dancing, creating assignments for my students, making jewelry, painting, sewing, cooking, sculpting, gardening or a myriad of other creative activities.