Oct 22nd

The Frames We Use

by @nateriggs

becky-johns-photographyMy friend Becky Johns did her first speaking gig in front of a few hundred people at the Detroit 140 Conference on Wednesday.

The topic?  The thinking behind her ongoing photo project, Friends in a Frame.

[Becky Johns on Friends in a Frame 2010 from Nate Riggs on Vimeo.]

Frames as Buffers

friends-in-a-frameI hate getting my picture taken.  I can be on video all day long and it doesn’t bother me, but having someone snap my picture is like going to the dentist.  Uncomfortable.

Because I’m uncomfortable, I rarely ever smile.  But, as it turns out, Becky was right.  When I held the frame, I forgot about my discomfort.  I had something else tangible to focus on.  The result?  More personality emerged for Becky to capture, frame by frame.

For some people, talking in groups or one-on-one is incredibly uncomfortable.  My friend Brandon Croke once did a search on Twitter for the amount of people who list INFP personality types (Myers-Briggs assessment) in their Twitter profiles.  The results were surprising – and those were just the people courageous enough to list it.

Most introverts will tell you that they prefer to be alone or in small groups of trusted friends.  Face-to-face interaction with other humans causes anxiety and discomfort.  Much like Becky uses a frame as a buffer between her subjects and the lens, it would seem that for more introverted personality types, platforms like Twitter and Facebook act in the same way – a buffer that makes it easier to communicate with other humans.

Buffered Personalities

The web moves fast these days – in real time.  Each communication is but a snap in time distributed using social buffers.  Each snap can show personality, whether you are introverted or extroverted.  The question to consider though is this:

[Becky Johns on Friends in a Frame 2010 - Personalities from Nate Riggs on Vimeo.]

How do these buffers also act as filters?

Becky also made this point, which I thought was spot-on:

Your Frames

What frames do you use when you communicate?  Do the frames or technology buffers you choose also act as a filter for your personality?

by @nateriggs

nateriggs

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Comments (16)
  • http://detroit.fwix.com Jamie Favreau

    I am the complete opposite of you. I would rather be photographed than be on video or a podcast. I hate hearing myself talk or seeing myself in action. I don’t mind being photographed but she is right. The frame project takes the stress out of being photographed.

  • http://nateriggs.com nateriggs

    We all have our own apprehensions, I guess…

  • Glockenspiel

    I wonder…how are different frames manipulated to get different results? Why use Facebook one way, present yourself on LinkedIn another way, and post to YouTube in a completely different fashion? In turn, how do these different frames, which seem to capture “genres” of the self, come to influence our overall conception of identity?

    If we think about the rudimentary functions of basic media technologies- such as microphones or video cameras- the goal is amplification. For generations, techno-savants have used different tools to extend the self in ways that carry individual’s messages to mass audiences. But new media allows for more than amplification- the self is (re)configured and augmented by the different frames we digitally drape around our necks.

    We might think of this as “socialized digitization,” or emotionally capitalizing on the allowances of new media frames to help give our personal character a “thicker” definition. The name of the game is evocation and emotional resonance, not just increased social reach.

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  • http://www.sigmacreativeonline.com Christian Adams

    This is why I love the title of Perry’s blog, A Wider Lens. We often used this terminology as it relate to business is competitive strategy thinking and planning. AKA: Whole Brain Thinking via Ned Herrmann

    ….and Nate this is the reason I take the pictures. I don’t smile well either, but I have come out of my shell thanks to the great teachers at Franklin.

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  • http://nateriggs.com nateriggs

    you also take good pictures. best of both worlds… :)

  • http://nateriggs.com nateriggs

    that’s deep, and interesting to consider…