Photo: Robert Cornelius via Library of Congress (Public Domain)
Selfies are now embedded into our digital lives, from animal selfies to Snapchat to the memories that appear on your phone shows. Since the 2010s, selfies have only become increasingly popular after the invention of the selfie stick and the rise of social media. The 2013 Oxford Dictionaries word of the year was “selfie”, which they added to their pages with the definition as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”
Since then, selfies have cemented their place in pop culture, with dogs going viral for their “selfies” and celebrities making statements through who they feature in their self-taken photos. Selfies have only arguably become more popular since their introduction to the digital world and have evolved beyond their casual style—in some sense, they have become an art form, with guides on the internet offering tips on how to take the perfect one.
While selfies may be one of the most popular forms of self-expression in the current digital age, the phenomenon of photographing oneself dates back even before the invention of cell phones. Just a few years after the first known photograph was taken in 1826 by French physicist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, the first “selfie” was taken in 1839 by Robert Cornelius, a young chemist and photography hobbyist in Philadelphia. Cornelius set up his camera in the back of his family’s silver plating shop, ran into the frame where he had to sit for a minute, and then covered the lens again, producing a daguerreotype self-portrait.
Early daguerreotypes required long exposure times, typically three to fifteen minutes, making portraiture a challenging endeavor. Not only had Cornelius managed to take the first known selfie, but he also produced one of the earliest daguerreotypes in America, just a few months after Louis Daguerre announced his invention.
On the back of his portrait, Cornelius wrote, “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”
While the first “selfie” had humble origins, they are now a way to connect and share moments of togetherness by including the person taking the picture in the photo, unlike traditional photography. By uniquely allowing people to become both the photographer and subject, selfies have revolutionized how we capture ourselves in time.
Selfies have become synonymous with our digital lives, evolving from humble beginnings into a significant aspect of pop culture.
Photo: PNW Production via Pexels
Shortly after the invention of photography, Robert Cornelius, an amateur chemist, took the first known “selfie” in 1839.
Robert Cornelius performing a chemical experiment, December 1843 (Photo: Martin Hans Boye via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain)
Cornelius’ self-portrait was captured using a long-exposure daguerreotype process, becoming one of the earliest examples of this photographic practice in America.
Daguerreotype of unknown man, 1847-1851. (Photo: Antoine Claudet via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0)
h/t: [Open Culture]
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