rīga

Well, hello 2019 and being 31!

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I am a firm believer in the power of selfie. To feed the ego. To grasp the statistics-based idea that if you take hundreds of photos, some will turn out great. To understand how celebrity photos are curated…

I got my first digital camera in 2004, 15 years have passed since then, and by now I have a vast selfie archive. Here you have one per year since those sweet 16, picking the ones that are closest to my birthday on a given year in order to introduce an ‘external’ selection criterion:

October 2004, Rīga. October was the month when I got that little Sony DSC-T1, so this is truly one of my first digital selfies. In line with my fashion ethos, I still have that parka.

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January 2005, Rīga. Look at that artsy profile captured! And in black and white. Also, wide eyebrows clearly hadn’t become a thing.

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January 2006, Rīga. Still insisting on black and white. And also this coat, although heavily modified, is still in my wardrobe.

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January 2007, Rīga. The ‘after’ selfie to my first trip to London. Exhibit 1: having bought an unlined cotton jacket in Camden Town and insisting on wearing it in January, because *cool*. Although you can also observe that not all Januaries in Latvia are necessarily snow-clad. I don’t have that jacket anymore because I wore it to shreds, but I still have that scarf…

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February 2008, Ciudad Real. Once the ‘good angles’ were clear, experiments with weird ones could begin. A bit Voldemort-ish, though. Also, change of camera – it’s a basic Canon 400D kit from now on.

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January 2009, Rīga. Back to first henna dye-job after having shaved my head in 2008. And back to glasses that I had ditched in 2001 or so.

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January 2010, Salamanca. O, a timer selfie! Look, both hands in the photo!

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January 2011, Rīga. Because I’m in no way above a duck face and a big wig. Also, I like pink.

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January 2012, Salamanca. The most horrible thing of my undergrad was the traditionally divided working day: we’d often end class at 14.00 and then be expected back for another one at 16:00. And waking up from the siesta – especially if the previous night had been spent on art projects, party projects, social media or studying – was so hard… And gave material to many improvised photo shoots.

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January 2013, Salamanca. Fun fact: starting living with C marked a halt in my selfie sessions. But some still happened, especially to inaugurate a new pair of glasses. These turned out to be my all-time favorites so far.

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February 2014, Brussels. Realizing that I had stopped carrying around the big camera and, hence, taking photos, I went back to carrying around the small Sony. The quality went down but the frequency went up.

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January 2015, Rīga. ‘The typical’ – using the time when my mom is running errands by staying in the car and making a selfie session out of that. Also, you can see that I have a fluffy nose.

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January 2016, Rīga. This is an actual birthday photo of ‘it’s very cold outside, let’s take a family New Year walk around the city’.

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January 2017, Barcelona. ‘Working’ from bed. Normal Barcelona winter.

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January 2018, Rīga. A phone selfie, at last. I switched to a smartphone in November 2017, so I’m still a beginner with the whole front-back camera thing. Notice that same parka as in the first photo.

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What’s your relationship with selfies? Love, hate or love-hate? Do you do a lot of them? What are your favorite selfie settings or moments?