Is The Selfie Ruining How Women See Themselves?

Nearly every single day, there's a new article about Kim Kardashian (or one of her super-famous sisters) taking "the perfect selfie." Hello, she's even published an entire coffee-table tome dedicated to the subject. Of course we mere mortals take note on how to emulate those flawless pics: from double-checking the lighting to finding the right photo-editing app to bringing a friend with extra-long arms along to hold the camera at the right distance and angle. But New York-based concept artist Katie Fischer (a.k.a Fischer Cherry) wonders: What are we aiming to achieve by snapping these semi-awkward, semi-sultry poses? Could the selfie actually be ruining female self-confidence, rather than empowering it? By exploring this obsession with outward appearance, Fischer aims to find out.

She had not — until recently — turned the camera on herself. "Before I started [my selfie project], I had never taken one," Fischer tells Refinery29 of her latest photo series. The photographs that resulted, which capture various New York women breaking from their daily routines to snap images of themselves, came "slow and organically," she continues. "[They were] a result of things I witnessed in my own life and on social media."

Turning a lens on people who are turning a lens on themselves isn't just clever; it also allows Fischer to put the very act of self-photography on display.