{"id":8930,"date":"2014-01-02T09:58:50","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T14:58:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/?p=8930"},"modified":"2014-01-02T09:59:05","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T14:59:05","slug":"why-youll-be-seeing-a-lot-more-of-me-in-2014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/2014\/01\/02\/why-youll-be-seeing-a-lot-more-of-me-in-2014\/","title":{"rendered":"Why you might be seeing a lot more of me in 2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

A<\/span>h, the selfie. Celebrated<\/a>. Reviled<\/a>. International word of the year for 2013<\/a> and also at the top of words to banish for 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Clearly it’s a polarizing idea. People love them or hate them. I love them and<\/em> hate them. I really appreciate a well-done selfie – when they’re insightful and show something about the person both holding and in front of the camera. I love the creativity involved, especially when someone is doing a year-long 365 project of selfies. I love seeing what people want to expose about themselves, and I love when people who are usually behind the cameras are brave enough to step in front.<\/p>\n

So what do I hate? My selfies. Ugh. I can count on one hand the number of photos I’ve taken of myself that I truly love, and maybe there’s another dozen that I like because I’m framed with the kids. Every single time I try to set up a photo of myself, I feel self conscious and ridiculous. To be honest, selfies play to my most visceral of fears: looking foolish. I cringe at the idea of someone looking at my photo of me and thinking, “Oh that’s so sad. She’s way too {old, fat, boring, plain, ugly} to pull that off.” While I don’t lack confidence in so many other areas of my life, I cannot imagine why anyone might want to see any more than the occasional photo of me.<\/p>\n

Which is precisely why I joined the #365feministselfie project<\/a>. Sometimes, ya gotta do what terrifies you, right?<\/p>\n

Don’t worry, you’ll not have to suffer through hundreds of photos of me posed coquettishly with lips puckered and chin raised. There’s no way I have the tenacity to make it through 365 of them, but I am aiming for one a week for a year. One of my main inspirations is this article<\/a> that I shared last year, something I want all my mom friends and photo clients alike to read. I read it last year and it has stayed with me, because it is oh so very true:<\/p>\n

\nI’m everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won’t be here — and I don’t know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now — but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.<\/p>\n

When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don’t look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her — her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That’s the mother I remember. My mother’s body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn’t care that she didn’t look like a model. She was my mama.<\/p>\n

So when all is said and done, if I can’t do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I plan to play just as fast and loose with the definition of “selfie” as I did with the idea of a 365 project after the first year was in the can. A photo taken any time during the week, posted maybe on Instagram or maybe Flickr or maybe Facebook. Maybe of my feet, or my reflection, or my shadow. But me, once a week, for a year. Let’s see where it goes!<\/p>\n

\"Easing<\/a><\/p>\n

Want to play along? It’s not too late! <\/p>\n

What do you think of the whole “selfie” argument? Do you see them as narcissistic or celebratory? Is the selfie any more self-indulgent than endlessly loquacious blog posts? Should there be a “best-before” date on turning the camera regularly at yourself? What would keep you from doing a project like this?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ah, the selfie. Celebrated. Reviled. International word of the year for 2013 and also at the top of words to banish for 2013. Clearly it’s a polarizing idea. People love them or hate them. I love them and hate them. I really appreciate a well-done selfie – when they’re insightful and show something about the … Continue reading “Why you might be seeing a lot more of me in 2014”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-is-all-about-me","category-project-365"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8930"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8937,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8930\/revisions\/8937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/danigirl.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}