“Selfies”

I recently had reason to submit a photograph of myself for an online application.  In the hope of not having to suffer through the indignity of having my photo taken at the local post office, I scoured the album on my phone.  Surely there would be one acceptable photo of me in it.

Apparently not.  Not only was there no acceptable image of me on my phone, there simply were no photos of myself to be found on the device.

I decided to try that all pervasive hobby of generations younger than I, and take a “selfie”.  Surely, with all the latest gizmos that the modern mobile phone contains, I’d be able to take a decent photo of myself.

Apparently not.  Each photo I tried to take seemed to come back as my lovely mum.  Whilst she was lovely, I’m not yet that old. I’m beginning to suspect that my phone’s camera is in cahoots with my bathroom scales.

This situation got me thinking about one of the pesky perks of today’s mobile phones: The one that sends you a monthly reminder of your photos taken 5 years ago, or over the last month.

For some reason my phone has started to send me these automated albums without my asking it to.  I’ve subsequently realised just how unexciting my life seems to be when compared with other people’s.

Other people seem to have an awful lot of photos of themselves on their phone, or of different restaurant meals they’ve had, or their latest sky-diving adventure.

Not me.  My photo album consists of random work timetables, assessment instructions, sheet music for students, screen shots of insurance policies and of tax receipts.  There are some photos of the latest achievements of my incredible niece and nephew and many of my beautiful son.  Oh, and there’s the odd tree here and there.

What does that say about me?  Am I really that boring?  Or is the state of my phone’s photo album a reflection of my generation?

I think it’s probably a bit of both.

I long for the days when a phone was just a phone.  I still think I need to have an actual camera to take photos of a sunset and I often forget to take my phone with me when I go somewhere.  It simply doesn’t occur to me to take a photograph of the hot chocolate I consume in a rare visit to a café and why on earth would I take a photo of myself?

It seems I use my phone’s camera as a tool for everyday life rather than documenting the extra, fun parts. But probably the fun parts of my life are no comparison to those of others.  I’m a simple soul.

A simple soul who, because of her boring-ness - and deceitful phone camera - did have to endure the embarrassment of having her photo taken in a public post office, only to pay for a more appalling photograph of herself than she could have taken on her own phone…

Nikki