Reading blog 1

I find it crazy how the ideas and connotations associated with the term “selfie” has changed over time. The self portrait has always been considered an amazing feat. This is due to the amount of challenge that was associated with being able to paint something you can never truly look directly at. Even though they are plenty of other people artists could paint, painting oneself has always been a highly regarded task. When these artist would take on the challenge of painting themselves, it was not often in a sense of vanity. Within a painting of anyone everything within the picture matters, because you know that it was placed there on purpose to show something about the subject. However, the concept of a self portrait has changed a lot over the years. Now we are able to get a perfect image of ourselves, with as many tried as we would like, instantly. This takes away to hard work that was contrived in original self-portraiture and reduces the amount of preparation and intent to create the piece. Within a modern day selfie the area is not always set to be representative of the subject. In an old picture that would have shown the subject in a clean room, probably in their best clothes, maybe accompanied by their children or signs of wealth. Whereas, the background of the modern day selfie is often not meant to be focused upon whatsoever, with even the “artist” not always knowing what’s in the background. The intentionality of self-portraiture has changed drastically over time and in many ways, while becoming more available, has lost artist touch.