I mis-read the name of the site I’m going to tell you about, as Pointless Portraits. Actually it’s Selfless Portraits.
To be honest, it is kind of pointless but it’s also refreshing because it’s fun and nobody’s trying to (terrible word) monetize it.
The way it works is that you allow the site to access your Facebook photo. They send it to somebody else who has registered with the Selfless Portraits site. That person draws you, based on your Facebook photo. If you want to see the result, you have to draw a picture of someone whose Facebook photo is sent to you.
See what I mean? Random and pointless, but amusing. You can look at a gallery of the results at the site without signing up. As you’ll see some people just load the photo into Photoshop and click on a filter. Others match the face with a photo of the animal the other person most resembles. The rest draw or paint the face, with varying results...
If you want to do a variation of this that is geared to writing, you need an accomplice. You send them the name and address of someone
you know but they don’t, and they do the same. Then each of you sends a cryptic
postcard to the person whose information you were given. It could be a favorite
quote or a reference to a surreal event, or whatever you want (avoid the
temptation to refer to a fictional assignation, we’re not trying to start
divorces here).
Sure, that’s kind of pointless as well, but I think everybody should have at least five minutes of intentional pointlessness a day.
