VIDEO: German tourist chronicles trip to Costa Rica by taking 1000 selfies

Pure narcissism or a creative exercise in photography?

It’s hard to say what the inspiration was for this neat little video produced by Tim Aßmann. The 33-year-old German photographer took 1,000 selfies* to document his 23-day trip from New York City to Costa Rica and back again.

Certain parts of the 2:37 long video can drag. It gets tiring to watch Aßmann, who uses the artist name Tim Panse, stick his tongue out or try out sunglasses over and over again in the film’s stop-motion style.

But for anyone familiar with Costa Rica’s terrain, the best part of the video is identifying all the Tico landmarks that flash by for less than a second. During the film’s Costa Rican portion, we observed capuchin monkeys, Sansa airlines, zip-lining, Volcano Arenal, Teatro Variedades and the gazebo in Parque Morazán in San José, a cold bottle of Imperial beer, Costa Rica national team jerseys and a Borucan diablito mask, among many other sights. Go spy them for yourself here:

New York City to Costa Rica – a selfie experience from Tim Panse on Vimeo.

In an interview with the New York Daily News, Aßmann’s seemed to provide an answer about whether this was a sincere artistic enterprise or another lame activity in an era of self-obsession. His response lies somewhere in the middle:

“I have to admit it was quite some fun taking picture of myself during that trip, especially when finding out which creative potential lies within those pictures,” he told the Daily News. “But to be honest, at the end of the day, it was all just for the fun of it.”

*Urban Dictionary defines a selfie as “a picture [usually snapped at arm’s length] taken of yourself that is planned to be uploaded to Facebook…or any other sort of social networking website.”

Matt Levin is a correspondent for The Tico Times