The rabid proliferation of the selfie (and particularly the
awful wide angle phone ones) in social media makes me cringe but I don’t rant
about them and I keep out of discussions..
I am particularly incensed by the ones posted by women who
are not 20 and have not been so for decades. These photographs show no skin
pores and the result exceeds the early Photoshop method tool called Diffuse Glow.
Worst of all are the comments: “You still look lovely!” or “How do you manage
to look young?” If I were any of those women reading those comments about myself I would
immediately go to the kitchen and perform an instant seppuku.
There are some men whose only posted photographs are
constant new ones (all terrible) of themselves.
The opera-diva practice of posting photographs of what one
looked like many (many) years ago makes it inevitable that soon all
relationships and even sex will be of the virtual variety. Nobody will want to
be seen as one is.
The above is but an overture to place here some selfies from
the Met that I took in the mid to late 80s.
I do not look like that at all anymore. I simply like the
choices I made and wonder why I skipped my fave The Abduction of the Sabine
Women by Nicolas Poussin.
