Oxfam invited typhoon survivors to share their self-portraits. The results aren’t what you’d expect.
Be honest: raise your hand if you haven’t taken a selfie sometime in the past year.
Hand still down? Okay, that’s what I thought.
Hey, there’s no shame in it. From world leaders to astronauts to reclusive electronic musicians, we’ve increasingly made selfies part of our shared global vocabulary. (I confess I’ve taken one or two of them myself.) Whether you find it narcissistic or empowering, a selfie is an affirmation of identity, presence, and connectedness: an avatar of yourself in a given moment, shared with the world. Unlike a portrait taken by someone else, it’s an autonomous statement, a way of saying “I’m here.”
That’s why I was so intrigued by a series of recent photos from the Philippines. Oxfam’s team invited people living in Tacloban, one of the areas hit hardest by Typhoon Haiyan, to take selfies and share the messages they’d like to send to the global community.
8 Inspiring Selfies from the Philippines
http://firstperson.oxfamamerica.org/ | By Anna Kramer | February 7, 2014