Excuse me, would you like me to use your smartphone to take a photo of you and your friend and/or family?
I don’t want to be too forward, but I can promise you better photo quality than any selfie stick currently on the market, at less than half the cost. Actually, at none of the cost.
I am what you might call a “human selfie stick”: I can take a photo of you, just like you would do with a selfie stick—but better.
That’s right. I am capable of composing a photo of you and your friends and/or family more professionally than any selfie stick can. If you happen to be standing in front of a view of mountains, I can include some, or all, of the mountains as the background of your photo. I can take vertical or horizontal photos, or, just to be safe, both. I can take a wider-angle photo with your entire body in it, or a somewhat tighter shot that only shows the upper half of your body. Please just let me know what you would like.
After I take several photos (or just one photo if you prefer), I will hand you your smartphone back and allow you to inspect the photos in case you’d like me to make any adjustments. I strive to take quality vacation photos for you during the brief seconds or minutes of our interaction, and if you have any suggestions or specific directions, please communicate those clearly. Would you like me to get everyone but Sharon in the photo? I am happy to do that. Would you like to jump in unison with your companion and have me take a photo of you both joyously suspended midair? Let’s get wild. You are obviously wanting to capture memories while you are, for example, at the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and I offer this service to you as a favor, one vacationing human to another.
Trust me, if you do not own a selfie stick, or you do not have one with you, and you are trying to take a photo of yourself and your friend, say, on the summit of a mountain, your photographic possibilities will be limited by the length of your arm. A human selfie stick like myself, however, can stand wherever I want, expanding the field of view, as well as the variety of photos from this occasion that you will be able to treasure for decades to come, or just post to Instagram in hopes of receiving a metaphorical avalanche of likes, comments, or other forms of approval from your followers.
I offer this service, again, completely free of charge. I am not, however, like many selfie sticks currently on the market, bluetooth-enabled. I am not made of cheap plastic construction, and I will not break or malfunction after repeated usage. You will not lose me somewhere on your vacation, although the chances that we will have a relationship beyond this single interaction are very small. In fact, you will very likely never see me again after I take your photo.
If you do not know what a selfie stick is, let me be clear that I am just offering to help you take a photo. I assure you I am not trying to steal your phone or ask you out on a date. My motives are 100 percent altruistic.
My performance as a human selfie stick does not have Amazon reviews you can read, or testimonials from satisfied customers. All I can say is that I have performed as a human selfie stick quite extensively, and have never heard any complaints. My track record as a human selfie stick goes back many years, predating selfie sticks themselves.
What’s that? Oh, I guess you’re correct—if I take the photo for you, it’s not actually a selfie. It’s just a photo of you.
—Brendan