Bio shots – you know the ones I mean? You have to give a talk and they want a short bio and a photo for the brochure. What do you do? Do you reach for your mobile phone and selfie stick, do you rush down to the local passport photo booth, ask your mate to take a photo of you in a relaxed pose or do you go down to the local photographic studio for a more professional look? It’s a tricky one isn’t it.
On the one hand you want it to look natural but on the other hand you don’t want to look too informal – it’s not a holiday snap after all. In the past I have gone for 
the ‘ask a friend to do it’ option which seems to fit the bill. I am always interested in what other people do and what it says about the subject.
Some go to great lengths to look professional, add a touch of context too (a book or laptop perhaps) and some go to no lengths at all and just take a selfie. Chinese girls and women are selfie queens, whether it be in front of a view, in a cafe, in the back of a car or in a cinema. Chinese girls must spend a large chunk of their day indulging themselves in this narcissistic pastime.
Flicking through a conference brochure earlier looking at the speakers there was all the usual – men with books, men in professional studio shot and of course, one female speaker Chinese advertising her speech with…. yes you guessed it…. a selfie taken at her desk. I imagined her sitting there, hair pulled behind her ears, scarf draped around her neck and of course that cute little look, gazing upwards to the lens with eyes big and dreamy, head titled a little to the side so there is a half profile.
So it has come to this, that an education professional thinks so little of the event that she can’t even be bothered to get her mate to take picture. She reaches for her iPhone, puts on a cutesy expression and click – there you go – a perfect bio shot. Why is it always the women? Why aren’t Chinese men selfie mad?