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If there's one very important lesson I've learnt from taking selfies, it is that sometimes life gives you just that one shot.
And in that one shot, you have to get it right.
You know how people talk about being in the moment and all? That's exactly how it is with selfies. Because you can try to recreate that one moment in the very next moment where you're in the exact same place, same atmosphere, same surroundings, same lighting, and something seems off right away. It never, ever comes out the way you expect the shot to. Something just seems... different. Either you're smiling different, or looking different, or there's another factor out of place altogether.
It's just not the same entirely, and that really can get one's goat when one is trying to get it right. It's not as simple as one wishes it would be and it can get rather frustrating sometimes. The funny thing is, the more I try to make my selfies make me look presentable and confident and real, the more I think of all the work that goes behind the scenes of the influencers who shoot OOTDs to post on social media. They've done a pretty good job of looking like they simply breezed into the scene, struck a pose and grabbed the shot because they're this confident, this stylish and basically this good-looking.
But there really is plenty of planning, plenty of preparation, plenty of arrangement and coordination going on. There's work that happens before the shoot. There's work that happens during the shoot. There's work that happens after the shoot.
And behind every picture is a backstory. Behind every picture is a direction- whether self-directed, or directed by someone else. I do admire them quite a bit, I must say.
Because it does take a certain level of confidence to do what they do in general public. They don't have the luxury of a large camera crew and a production assistant to block out the staring crowds. They don't have the luxury of a production schedule that's tightly arranged and kept on time. Most of the time they're with just one or two people, mingling with the crowds, trying to appear conspicuous yet inconspicuous at the same time.
I've seen them sitting on the edge of the road on the curb whilst their photographer crouches down from the opposite side, camera in hand. I've seen them leaning in multiple tryouts against a particular lamp-post in the glaring sunshine. I've seen them in full make-up rehearsing their walk behind alleys. I've seen them place themselves in the oddest of places and grant the lens a smile like they just stepped into that place and decided that they'd capture that one moment. It's not easy, really, sticking yourself to a lamp-post in the middle of a steaming hot day with crowds of people thronging around you and who don't give a d*** about photo-bombing your shot.
Maybe that's why that there's never a shot that does not go planned. There's never a shot that can be done in one take, and if there happens to be one, it's a really, really rare one.
With a very efficient and effective photographer.