The History of Self Shots

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All throughout history and into the present, women and men from all over the world have had self-portraits created of themselves through various ways. These methods included paintings, drawings and other art up to and including today’s more technologically advanced methods such as shooting photos using cell phone cameras and digital cameras. Some of these cell phones and cameras have front-facing lenses which allow people to see themselves while taking self pics.

Vanity thy name is… Self Shots…

Self portraits, in the past, were more painstaking and time-consuming to create since they were actual art. Once the camera was invented and became affordable for people to buy, meaning affordable for other than professional photographers, people began shooting self shots. People either posed in mirrors or held the camera far enough away to take selfpics. When cameras became outfitted with timers or other remote click features, people were given the ability to shoot actual self-portraits. However, these photos generally had to be tame since the photos shot on film negatives and these had to be developed by film developing houses which would audit and nix photos for nudity or pornography. This all changed when the Polaroid instant camera was developed. The Polaroid (the camera and film stock are now both out of production) allowed anyone with a Polaroid camera to take instant self shot photos and naughty selfies if they chose. However, these photos were mostly kept private, since the internet wasn’t around to feature self shot photos.

Today, self shots are everywhere, meaning all over the internet, especially on social networking, photo rating and photo sharing sites. Girls seem to be more into camwhoring, creating self pics of themselves doing just about anything and everything. Girls who post self pictures everywhere on the internet don’t really think about the possible consequences of posting slutty and semi-nude or even nude self shot photos. This happens despite many potential employers looking for self shots and other photos of job applicants on social media or photo sharing websites to see if the girls are the types of “responsible” employees they are looking for.

Although self portraiture has always been utilized since ancient history, it only recently exploded in popularity and usage due to the ease of access to inexpensive camera phones, webcams, and other quick and easy methods of snapping photos of oneself. Coupled with the Myspace fad a few years ago, then Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Mixi and Twitpic, girls all over the country and the world have seem to become addicted to taking and sharing with the world — dozens, hundreds, and sometimes even thousands of selfshot photos — some of which might be reasonably conservative while others are full-blown sexually provocative.

Another very popular thing that recently became national news was the topic of sexting: girls are now taking nude and semi-nude pictures of themselves with their mobile phones and sending them via text message or SMS message to their male friends. While this might be considered rather harmless to some, there are many cases where the “sexts” are forwarded to multiple people or seen by unintended recipients, which have caused major problems for the girls in the self shot photos.

Another negative re: self shots is for celebrities whose cell phones get hacked and their stolen photos get posted on the internet. Publicists are now advising their celebrity clients not to store selfpics or any naughty photos on their cell phones in case their camera phones are hacked. Alas…

Although the negative aspects of self shot photos seems overwhelming, some of the positive aspects of self shot pictures have included girls getting different types of job offers such as modeling and adult entertainment. Some girls also share their self shot photos on the internet and receive compliments on them from their fans which boosts their fragile self esteem. Encyclopedia Dramatica even mentioned that if girls post self shot pictures and receive no compliments, they might die! OK, that’s a little dramatic, but self shot girls seem to depend on the continuous feedback loop of being told they look sexy or hot after posting self shot photos. One beneficial aspect of taking sexy self shot pics is that girls can submit their sexiest self shots to select adult sites and get paid. These are sites where members can sign up to view these images or send tips to the girls, ultimately letting any girl who is found sexy able to make some money from submitting her self shot photos.

There are many self shot photo websites on the internet. While there are so many, there are really only a small selection that stand out from the rest due to the quality, popularity, and hot girls involved with the sites.