The Nude Selfie Movement: from toss shot to selfie stick and beyond.

Thirty-two years ago I tossed a camera into the air, smiled at the sky then heard the device smash to smithereens at my feet. An inauspicious beginning for the photographic technique that delights the world today. Of course, I didn’t give up at one smashed camera, or two or three. I kept trying till I perfected the toss-shot then went on to invent the selfie proper: it turns out that any inanimate object or slow moving animal can be used to create selfies. Your camera, rested on a rock, wedged in a tree branch or taped to a koala, will give you a basic selfie. This technique was a triumph of invention. Then came the stick.

Choose a stick of appropriate weight and length.

The first selfie stick shot is gone forever but I created it so let me describe it for you. Imagine a young man cycling alone across the Eyre Hiway. He comes upon a surveyors’ peg, tapes it through the handlebars of his bike and to the bike frame. Using chewing gun he sticks his camera to the far end of the stick. He sets the timer, bends low into frame and begins to ride. Then unable to steer he falls from his bike, gets up and is dusting himself off when the shutter clicks. The resulting image captures him bleeding from a head wound, staring at his bike wondering what the fuck just happened. The world’s first selfie stick photo was kept for years, pulled out from time to time for a laugh and eventually lost. The second shot survives.

The world's second selfie stick photo.

This time the young man strapped the surveyors’ peg to his pannier rack and glanced back over his shoulder as he peddled.  The selfie stick was born and the second selfie stick photo taken.

Today the stick is sexed up and ubiquitous. They are long and short, telescopic, remote controlled, made for land, air and sea. They are constructed from aluminum, composite and Kevlar, they are black, pink and blue and they cost a fortune. Not everyone can afford one. Millions of people throughout the developing world must save for many weeks or months to buy one. Others, sadly, simply must do without. The stick’s humble origins have been forgotten. This is tragic, because the selfie stick, after all, is just a stick. Little wonder that there is a growing movement across the world to return to the selfie sticks simple origin. The ‘Nude Selfie movement’ is born.

It’s important to make it clear that this movement has nothing to do with the popular pastime of photographing one’s genitals and sending the image to a friend. The ‘Nude Selfie movement’ is more highbrow than that. The term evokes the notion of stripping the selfie shot to its bare essentials.

So far as I can tell the movement began in the remote Bolivian town of Pelechuco. No one knows for sure how or why the movement began in this town almost 13,000 feet above sea lever. But whatever the answers, the movement is spreading and it’s easy to become involved. Simply throw away your selfie-stick, tripod, holder or other expensive and ridiculous support devices. Then use whatever is at hand in order to take photographs of yourself or your friends.

Almost anything can be used to take selfies.

The rules are simple: think about it then do it. Be creative. You’ll be surprised both by the fun of it and the wonderful and timeless images you will create, and it is cheap.

Go on, do your self a favor, join the Nude Selfie Movment today.