I take selfies and have no issues with others that also do, but there is a time and a place... probably with the Pope is not the time and place. But what about just taking a photo? Even Nuns are doing it. Where do you draw the line with photos?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mDCTAdiKGFc&pp=0gcJCYQJAYcqIYzv
Even if it’s a once-in-a-lifetime picture with the (deceased) Pope, who takes a selfie in front of a corpse? That’s pretty weird.
We’re going to be in Poland in less than a week. Auschwitz/Birkenau is on the agenda. The Lonely Planet guidebook reminds visitors to not take any smiling, grinning pictures in such a solemn place. The Rough Guide says that pictures are actually not allowed, and you don’t know whether the person next to you lost family there, so respect is due. It’s a memorial, not an amusement attraction, but Photos are a part of travel. It sounds like my iPhone camera will not get used there.
"Even if it’s a once-in-a-lifetime picture with the (deceased) Pope, who takes a selfie in front of a corpse? That’s pretty weird."
Eh. For hard core religious people (and I suspect Nuns would qualify) being dead really is a better place. Why shouldn't they be happy for him? Sad is for the people left.
Or something like that.
(Not a Catholic)
Many years ago, i happened to be at mass in St Peter's (I'm not a catholic) when the Pope was saying mass. There were nuns standing on the seats to take photos!
Yeah, I'm having a hard time rising to any level of offense or outrage. There's a love and veneration for those that are viewed as holy. So I get the emotional bond and the need to take a photo.
And I'm some how supposed to be offended that the unwashed masses took pictures, but the corporate media gets some sort of dispensation?
When I was in Italy in 1997, I attended the Pope's weekly Wednesday audience, which was held outside. As his Popemobile approached my row, it veered over to the side I was on, and he reached out and touched my hand, which I was waving frantically. I screamed like a groupie. Afterwards, one of the Swiss Guards came over and smiled, saying, "So, you will never wash that hand again, eh?".
Now I've never been very religious, but I was raised Catholic and I think you never get rid of that feeling (at least I didn't). I would have taken a photo of him in the casket.
I think how you act when you are taking a photo or selfie is the key issue.
It is common in some cultures to take photos of deceased relatives in the casket to share with others who could not be there.
A selfie is all about YOU.
"A selfie is all about YOU."
Uh, no.
When I went on my only trip (so far) to Europe I took selfies for Marie who had to stay at home. She asked for them. I don't take pictures of myself usually. Other people take enough so I'm in them but can't think of any other selfie I've ever took.
Nun jokes?
Q: What's black and white and green?
A: A nun eating a pickle.
Q: What's black and white and green and green and green and green?
A: A nun juggling pickles.
A selfie is all about YOU
SO?
Isn't travel all about you?
Are solo travelers to be barred from being in their own photos?
The only photo my mother had of her grandfather was taken when he was in his casket. He was only 30 so he didn't have many photo opps in life. There are a number of similar photos in historic collections of rural southwestern PA.
Yes. A lot of us here had family members from the time when photos were more of a big deal. Supposedly the "Brownie" was the dividing line for a lot of this Country.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kodak_Brownie
[snip]
The Brownie was a series of camera models made by Eastman Kodak and first released in 1900.[1]
It introduced the snapshot to the masses by addressing the cost factor which had meant that amateur photography remained beyond the means of many people;[2] the Pocket Kodak, for example, would cost most families in Britain nearly a whole month's wages.[3]
I'm usually a stickler for etiquette and protocol, but I can't find my outrage with the nuns taking a simple photo - not a selfie. However, the young group taking selfies and grinning like morons were inappropriate. I think the no photos admonishment by the guards was just as likely to be a crowd control issue, with the need to keep the line moving along.
I would also point out, for those who didn't watch the funeral, that many of the priests in the reserved seated area had their cameras or phones out during parts of the service. If a priest thinks it's not disrespectful, then who am I to argue.
A selfie is all about YOU.
Not necessarily. I started taking selfies years ago for my Mom. She had reached an age where her travelling days were behind her (almost) but that's for the next paragraph. This was also before she had joined Facebook. Every morning while on vacation I would email my Mom a few photos of what we had seen the day before. She loved it and the first thing she'd do when she woke up was check her email for my photos. These were all scenery photos and one day she replied in her subtle way that she wanted photos of me and my wife by asking if we were really on vacation because there were no photos of us. From that day on, my wife and I would take at least one selfie a day to send to her. The tradition continued after Mom joined Facebook. I'll agree that Facebook selfies may make it more about you, but for me it was all about my Mom.
Fast forward a few years when my Mom turned 85 and we took her to Disney World because she always wanted to go. I've got a few selfies of her and I that are even more meaningful to me now that she is gone.
My Mom passed away 16 months ago at 92 and when I viewed her in her casket at the funeral home I was tempted to take a photo because the people at the home had done such a brilliant job of preparing her body. I didn't take the photo because it didn't feel right. It wouldn’t have been a selfie, but it would have been all about me wanting that vivid final memory of her. I regret not taking it.
Alternative joke:
What's black and white and green?
A penguin salad.
Penguin joke:
A man walks into a psychiatrist's office with a penguin on his head. And the shrink says "So, what's your problem?"
And the penguin answers "I got this man stuck to my feet."
Nun (kinda) joke:
Traffic is crazy in Rome. Very scary trying to cross the street a lot of the time. It was said that the safest way was to cross in the company of Nuns.
Priests... not so much.
David's penguin joke reminds me of a true story I heard in England some time ago.
A big, ugly cross-eyed bloke, with a honker of a nose and warts all over his face, walks into a Mansfield pub with a beautiful scarlet macaw on his shoulders.
The landlord looks up, aghast: "My word, where on earth did you get that?"
The macaw replies: "In Leeds, there's bloody thousands of them over there."
The macaw later took out his iphone and took a selfie of himself perched on the bar rail, supping a pint of Mansfield Original Bitter.
Allan,
My Mom passed away at 94 and I took a photo of her in her casket because she looked so much like herself. My sister and I picked her casket and her outfit that suited her perfectly, with pink roses and a lavender outfit. She was a petite fashionista and we treasure her last photo. In last the few months of her life, she was healthy and strong until then, I took several selfies of her and me together.
Even though you don’t have a photo of her in her casket I’m sure this vivid memory will stay with you and comfort you. To have a wonderful Mother is God’s gift to us. I miss mine everyday.
Judy, my sympathies.
Stan and Silas marner, a friend of mine has a photo of herself at 6 months of age (1964) lying on the chest of her deceased gramma, in the coffin. Rural Missouri.
The worst I've ever seen is how tour groups behave taking selfies in front of the Mona Lisa in the Louvre. If you've done any real travel in Europe then you'll know exactly which country's tour groups are the worst. I last visited the Louvre in 2018 and vowed to never repeat that experience; frankly, that goes for almost all the major tourist destinations in Europe now. Even at less popular attractions the selfie crowd can evoke my disgust. For example, I was in the small town of Bomarzo (Italy) recently to visit the Sacro Bosco and had to endure Italians in their 20s crawling on top of the statuary to take selfies. Their lack of respect for their own cultural heritage was just sad. Selfies are a "thing" for millennials and gen Z, and their behavior is obviously exacerbated at tourist destinations, so you'll never get away from it and just have to try and ignore it, sort of like how we try to ignore the ubiquitious graffiti that has trashed so much of Europe.
If they were quick about it, I have no problem with selfies. My grievance is when folks take so much time in taking a picture, and in turn, hold up others (again, taking an appropriate amount of time, I’d be happy to wait, but going on and on is the selfish part when blocking others’ access not the pic itself).
