Photojournalism is dead. Long live the Selfie.
I proclaimed this not too long ago and for good reason. In the age of wireless internet and mobile devices, it's hard to imagine us being overly serious about pictures we see from war zones, poverty and environmental damage. Posting those pictures up isn't going to gain us any likes or for that matter win us fans from far away places. That's why the Selfie will remain indefinitely to be the iconic invention of our age and for the cam whore...a means to secure his or her five seconds of fame on Instagram.
On a Japanese kickstarter site, http://kibi-dango.jp, we find a selfie queen by the name of Julie Watai who basically believes she has the solution to all those selfie pictures that didn't look as good to post.
She has come out with a ring flash adaptor for your iPhone, which is powered by pair of AAA batteries, the Flash has a variable setting to allow for you to fine tune the illumination.
The Selfie as an Instagram Phenomena
When we admire pictures, we tend to look at old pictures from another time. It represented the pop culture of that long forgotten age. For us living in the Internet, we invent our own pop culture using social media and none could be more rewarding than to have your own Instagram profile with lots of followers—who are absolute strangers to you.
Since the premature death of real photojournalism in the 90s. We have more time to indulge ourselves with fanciful pictures of what we eat and where we hang out at. Julie Watai embodies that generation, and to her credit she has gone the improve her image with the Selfie Flash Ring.
The idea isn't new according to her Japanese Kibidango page, as you can easily buy one for you DSLR to shoot insects and flowers. However, no one got the idea that it could be used to improve the illumination of the selfie so here we have an invention. Now I would like to point out that the invention isn't like inventing sliced bread.
For some years now, there have been mobile apps that set off the LCD screen to a bright flash for use as selfie inspired illumination. The only problem was that these 'front flash' apps could not control the amount of light emitted from the screen.
Julie's take on the Selfie Flash Ring can do this and though I am not sure to what extent, it claims to offer controlled illumination.
Regardless of what the claims might be, this is a gadget no camera whore can live without and it would only be a matter of time before someone in China mass produces this.
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