What is it about?
This article is a pedagogical and artistic intervention that transforms selfie-taking from a trivial habit into a critical, reflective practice. By combining visual theory, analog techniques, and creative exploration, the study encourages teacher-training students to reconsider their relationship to image-making—and by extension, to culture and self-representation.
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Why is it important?
This publication redefines the selfie—a familiar, often trivialized practice—into a meaningful tool for critical reflection, identity exploration, and visual literacy. By slowing down the process through analog photo booths, it challenges the instant, disposable nature of digital self-portraits and demonstrates how photography can be used as a pedagogical and artistic research method. For educators, it offers a powerful example of photo-based educational research, showing how creative constraints, theory, and practice can be combined to help students analyze visual culture, question social norms around self-representation, and develop deeper self-awareness. For researchers and artists, it highlights how everyday cultural practices like selfies can become sites of inquiry and creative experimentation, broadening the scope of both education and artistic research. This article is significant because it turns a common cultural habit into a critical and transformative learning experience, bridging art, education, and cultural studies.
Perspectives
This article as a powerful reminder of how something as ordinary as a selfie can become a deep and reflective artistic practice. What resonates with me most is the way it slows down a habit we often take for granted, inviting us to step back, plan, and truly see ourselves through the lens. For me, this isn’t just about photography; it’s about reclaiming self-representation and turning it into a space for critical thinking and creativity. I also value how the article connects theory with hands-on experimentation. It inspires me to consider how visual culture shapes identity and how education can help students move beyond surface-level imagery. Personally, I’m drawn to its mix of art, pedagogy, and research because it aligns with my own belief that learning should be both analytical and expressive. This piece encourages me to explore everyday practices more critically and creatively, and I think it offers a model for others to do the same.
Guillermo Calviño-Santos
Universidade da Coruna
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Self-portrait in the photo booth: self-representation in the selfie era, a Photo-based Educational Research Project, Visual Studies, January 2022, Taylor & Francis,
DOI: 10.1080/1472586x.2021.2014354.
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