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Creative Expression Is Just a Tap Away

Two hundred years ago, people spent oodles of money and posed hours on end for a painter to immortalize them for the future. Now, with only a camera click and a tap to share, an image is part of a widely spread personal history.

Yesterday’s portrait is today’s selfie. And, like a master’s painting, many are full of creative expression.

Selfies began making news in 2004 and today more than 30 million show up on Instagram when you search the hashtag #selfie. I guess when even the Pope and the President of the United States are showing up in selfies, it’s a pretty big trend. But is it a trend that’s gone too far?

The Downsides to Selfies

Yes, there’s self-absorption inherent in the selfie.

How many pictures of yourself do you need?

Are you sharing just to count the “Likes” and pocket approval?

And when you have to stop in the middle of a slice of pizza to take your picture, has obsession turned to narcissism? 

“Oh, wait. Let me just get a picture of myself snarfing down some pizza!”
© Scott Bradley

Selfies include the pornographic and the macabre with people posing in front of cadavers or faking their own deaths (and setting off Internet rumors about it).

Some people risk their lives just to get what’s known as an extreme selfie like the one taken by Christian as he ran for his life from angry bulls in last week’s Houston Bull Run.

But downsides aside, the creative side of selfies keeps me on their side.

The Creative Value of Selfies

Always a champion of creative expression, I like how selfies keep creativity flowing, so I offer these three upsides in their defense:

1. Selfies Contribute Works of Art to the World

I admire the selfies that—with little background—capture the essence of  an individual and add to the world’s body of portrait art.

This portrait photographer and the subject
are one and the same.
© Yongzhe Wu

Captivating portraits rely on that intangible talent, the privy of famous portrait photographers, to snap the picture when the subject’s personality peers through. Perhaps that’s easier in a selfie because subject and photographer are the same.

With some staging and the ever-present mirror, some selfies become fascinating still life art—the kind that makes me linger and look deeper into the photo.

Selfie photographers thrive on mirrors, bathroom and otherwise,
to set the image into a creative scene.
© Javier Maubecin

An interesting angle and color-coordinated styling turns an ordinary evening at home into a creative stage.

Many selfies unleash creativity with the angle
of the shot and careful styling.
© Hoang Minh Trang

2. Selfies Create a New Concept of Beauty

Smart phones give people, especially girls and women, more than the power to take a picture.

Selfies balance out images of the perfect faces and bodies dished up by advertisers and the media with pictures of real people, thereby creating not just a new but a real concept of beauty. As Dr. Sarah J. Gervais says in Psychology Today, we can now “. . . look through our Instagram feed and see images of real people—with beautiful diversity.”

The right angle? The right flip to the curl?
A selfie photographer gets to choose.
© Gina Spitale

The selfie has handed over the controls. Now people can experiment with creative expression, deciding how they want to look and which presentation they want to share.

3. Selfies Are Creative Artifacts for Visual Diaries

Not all selfies are just about self. Rather, they have documentary value in recording personal history.  A simple selfie in the perfect location can be AMAZING, and it says, “I was here.”

An artifact of the sea and me
© Niccolo Simoncini/iStock

A U.S. Air Force pilot takes a selfie in an F-15e Strike Eagle over North Carolina.
© Stocktrek Images

Collectively, selfies leave behind a creative record of the life and times on our planet for anthropologists and researchers like Dr. Mariann Hardey to surely study in the future.

But in our lifetimes, they are also visual diaries of our courageous and inspirational moments; they chronicle our progress when trying to make a life change, like going to the gym. These ideas and more speak to the positive side of selfies in creating a happy life, offered by Dr. Pamela Rutledge in Psychology Today.

Make More Selfies

With selfies hopefully vindicated and in recognition of their contribution to creative expression, OIC Moments invites you to enter our “OIC Me!” contest.

Just snap a creative selfie—portrait art, maybe a still life, or you in a memorable moment—and tell what it says about you. And, if you want to play with some selfie trends, try a

Even a cat can take a selfie!
© borzywoj/IStock

• Helfie, the hairdo selfie, a term inspired by a photo Beyoncé took of her new hairstyle
• Seatbelt selfie, snapped when you are safely buckled in the car
• Welfie, taken in workout gear
• Felfie, farmers taking selfies

Toddlers in the house can submit a toddler selfie. And your pets can submit a pet selfie—there’s even an app for that.

Oh, I can’t wait to see what you come up with!

Just click the phone to go to the OIC Moments contest page on Facebook:

With appreciation to Janine Boylan for research and contributions to this article. 

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.