Contest: Send Your South of France Selfies!

Have you been poking around Provence, cavorting on the Côte d'Azur, luxuriating in the Languedoc? Then send us your very best South of France selfie* and you could win a great prize. 

I first ran this contest last year, in the dead of winter, which wasn't terribly smart. So I'm doing it again, now that the summer travel season has fully begun. If you entered the first time around, rest assured that you and your adorable selfie will be entered into this year's contest...there's no need to send it again.

When taking your selfie, we want to see glorious scenery in the background...a gorgeous beach or medieval village...a vast vineyard, bustling bistro, crowded market, remote mountaintop....you get the idea. Be creative and have fun...climb a tree, leap from a plane, fight a bull, go where no man has gone before. Just be sure that the photographer--and something recognizably South of France--is visible in the frame. This contest will go on for a while to allow for your upcoming travels...or you can send one from a previous trip. I'll publish my favorites, readers will vote and the winner will receive two nights at Le Mas de Lilou, a beautiful B&B in Tarascon, 15 minutes west of St. Remy. Plus, dinner one night for two.

So give it your best shot and send high-quality images (jpg, png or gif only) to me at: provenceblog@aol.com. Please put Provence Selfie in the subject line, tell me who's in the photo and tell me where and when it was taken. Can't wait to see you! 

*Note: The Oxford Dictionary celebrated the selfie as the International Word of the Year in 2013. More recently, selfies were blamed for an uptick (sorry!) in the spread of head lice among teenagers. And then we have this: scientists have been investigating the selfie phenomenon using "theoretic, artistic and quantitative" methods. They call it ''the vernacular of the 21st century'' and you can read their findings here.

Photos: A very nice selfie taken in Nice by Robert Schrader of the blog Leave Your Daily Hell, who thinks he very well may be the King of the Travel Selfie (agreed). Me with my friends Olivier and Denis, one hot summer day in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. (I'm much prettier in real life, BTW.) My Irish friends Niamh and Ellen Burns have selfied themselves all over France. Next, some selfies I found online: I love the"Polar Bear Reading a Book Partial-Duck Face Selfie" which I found here, as well as this French Waiter Selfie, Eiffel Tower Selfie, Selfie in Les Baux and sweet Honeymoon Selfie Over Provence. Up in Paris, Rihanna and her fingernails got photobombed while posing ever-so-nonchalantly for a selfie. And finally, we have a new version of the selfie artform: video. This one, Selfies in France, is by Tristan Cooke.