If 2014 and 2015 were the years of the boring
selfies, my good friend Sanjay Borra seems to have stumbled onto a Selfie Zone
that’s quite different and quite interesting.
Let’s first accept that the average Selfie is a
boring, narcissistic image that reeks of vanity. It is so in your face that I
can often smell the garlic in your breath. And even if Narendra Modi did his bit
to use the medium to bridge the gap between countries and sparked off the cozy
twosome formula, the Selfie remained a creator of memories that were focused on
the individual rather than on the environment or on the occasion.
Of course there was a logical explanation, a
rationale if you will, for this phenomenon. The limitations of course were the
length of your hands.
Well, at least till such time you got yourself a
Selfie Stick.
I’m surprised why photographers took so much time
to rediscover the timer. And happy that Sanjay seems to have mastered the trick
involved with the facility. And also thrilled that he’s so physically fit that
he doesn’t look in the least out of breath when he squeezes himself into the
shot.
His recent set of Selfies are a lesson in
humility. He, the individual is not in focus. It is the environment, the
ambience, the physicality of the moment that takes centre stage. He is part of
the picture, perhaps even holds it together…but the scenario is the hero, the
depth and the flavour of the image.
Sanjay seems to be saying to a self obsessed world
that Hey Guys Look…This is the world we live in…and that, that little guy out
there is me. Isn’t that a humble way of acknowledging that the world is indeed a
bigger place than your image of yourself.
I love it.
