Shoving the selfie-stick where the sun don’t shine

A Different View with Dave O’Connell

ever mind the drivers who use their phones; there is a growing case to be made now that people walking while talking on their mobiles should get penalty points.

And if they are taking photographs of themselves with the help of a selfie-stick, then they should have their phones taken off them altogether.

A recent trip to London served to highlight just how hazardous walking along the footpath has become – particularly if there is anything at all worth photographing.

The mere sight of a London bus or a bobby or a building of any semi-significance, tourists all stop without any warning to capture this iconic image on their iPhone – an image that they’ll later have no recollection of, because they actually never saw it in the first place.

But if there’s one thing worse than a tourist stopping without warning to shoot a pic, it’s one who wants to get themselves into the shot as well as though they add to its resonance.

Take a recent experience, also in London, at the National Gallery.

Even those of us who know almost nothing about art would instantly recognise Van Gogh’s Sunflowers – and certainly the crowds who poured through the gallery doors knew exactly where they were heading.

The scene in front of the masterpiece was like a press conference after Real Madrid had just broken the world transfer record; dozens of would-be photographers jostling for position to get a special shot of the prized possession.

Which was fine and indeed even understandable – until one self-obsessed young lady decided that the only thing that would improve on van Gogh’s original work would be a pic with her head in front of it.

In other words, a selfie with the Sunflowers.

Queue a lengthy period of wriggling in past the Chinese tourists to get in front of the painting, followed by several minutes capturing the image just right – herself front and centre and Van Gogh almost photobombing her from the background.

The young lady may well go home wondering what the flowers were behind her.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.