Selfies, A Warning From History For Geraldo Rivera

 For reasons I never been able to work out my most popular blog is about crumpled photographs. I thought it was time I looked at a modern photographic phenomenon, that of the self taken portrait or selfie. I must warn you that this blog contains some shocking images.

The selfie most often taken at an angle of 45 degrees, the subject's upper arm leading into the head shot. Sometimes there is even a famous landmark in the background. Proof that the solo traveler has indeed left their living room. I 've even taken some of myself.

The arrival of the front facing camera helped a lot with the rise of the selfie, you can see what you're taking.  Is there narcissism in the selfie though? Certainly many of them taken in front on a full length mirror give that appearance and social media gives the ideal          platform to show off these snaps.                                                                                  

There should always be self awareness with the photo. What got me thinking of this was a shot posted by Fox New presenter Geraldo Rivera. I was first aware of his work during my trips the States, Geraldo was often up to his knees in flood water, struggling to         remain up right in the teeth of a hurricane. I blame late night bars with nothing to show after the sports have finished. Anyway to celebrate his 70th birthday Geraldo decided to post this. Not his best work.                                                                                           

                                                                                 

This caused a lot of consternation and rightly a back lash on twitter. This was led by US chef, author and tv travel/food presenter Anthony Bourdain. First known to me through his book Kitchen Confidential, a mixture of autobiography, restaurant review and self help book, Bourdain let rip into the veteran newscaster.                                                          

Sadly for Bourdain's credibility he soon announced he was standing in for Piers Morgan on his CNN show and had obviously just been trying to drum up some interest. To be honest all he had to do was not be Piers Morgan.                                                                                                                                                  

Anyway here's something I found slightly more pleasing on the eye                                 

                    

Heat

 I'm not talking about the great film with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro, I'm talking about the great British weather.         

                
The last few weeks have been glorious. The sun has shone, the skies have been blue. All is good, even the temperature control in my office has worked properly for the first time in 14 years. Obviously these things can't be rushed. Tied in with this has been some great sport. A couple of long winded events are taking place. The Ashes and Tour de France are occupying quite a lot of my time. I've been watching TDF on and off since the mid 1980s when C4 started showing highlights, probably around the time Stephen Roche won the event. This sort of fell away when C4 decided Hollyoaks was a priority. The discovery footage was shown live on Eurosport was a revelation. At the time they only used one commentator for the whole show, sometimes up to 6 hours. It's no wonder he used to wax lyrical about crème brulee.

There's plenty of local interest in this year's tour with both Mark Cavendish and Peter Kennaugh taking part. Cav's capabilities are well known but I've been very impressed with the Olympic gold medallist from Onchan. He's put in several Herculean efforts at the front to get his Team Sky leader Chris Froome into the yellow jersey although he does now appear to have some sizable bags under his eyes.

As they would no doubt say in France:

                                               Chapeau Peter Kennaugh.

Isle of Man Festival

 Last time there was a music festival in the Isle of Man I ended up attending. I posted this on an old blog site in July 2010.

Late Replacement

I popped out for lunch on Saturday, at the Queens very nice, and subsequently found myself at the Bay Festival. I was initially surprised by this turn of events. I didn't have a coat with me and I was wearing new shoes. Steel toecapped Doc Martens; which are bang on trend. After Divercity and DJ Inronkic passed me by in a haze of indifference things started to pick up. The Coronas, not named after a long forgotten brand of lemonade, played well but weren't really my cup of tea. Not enough power chords but they went down well with the rest of the crowd so what do I know? Sets from The Feeling, including a Buggles cover and Calvin Harris raised the tempo and were more to my liking. The Feeling even managed to get their guitars screaming and Mr Harris was most insistent that we showed him our hands. This proved difficult while clutching a pint pot.

 The headline act was Spandau Ballet and to cut a long story short I got the impression they were just going through the motions but after 30 odd years in the business and having played, no doubt, some of the biggest venues a tent in Nobles Park might be a slight come down. They were well received by the crowd though.

I finished the night off with a very brisk walk home as the wind had picked up and I hadn't got round to getting a JLS hoody.