Thursday 12 December 2013

roberto schmidt's view on the selfie at the nelson mandela memorial



While l have Nelson Mandela's memorial service on my mind (because of my last post), there is an interesting article by Roberto Schimdt (here), about how the photograph he took of Barack Obama, David Cameron, and the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning Schmidt taking a 'Selfie' at Mandela's memorial service in Soweto, has been used to castigate the leaders, making them out to be childish and behaving inappropriately at a memorial service.
Much as l am loath to defend David Cameron in any way, shape or form, the photographer explains how it was a long service (about 4 hours), but more importantly, it was a joyous, party atmosphere, with people celebrating Mandela's life, and not a solemn occasion where the actions would have been in bad taste.
As Schmidt (the photographer, not the minister) points out, it shows how images can sometimes be misinterpreted without knowledge of the background or preceding events. More of his photographs from that day are below.
I still hate Cameron though.




toodle pip

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