World Photography Day: World’s first ever ‘selfie’ was taken in 1839; read details

On World Photography Day, the history of the first-ever selfie recedes back to one chemist who captured his own photograph almost 175 years ago. Robert Cornelius, took his photograph and displayed it at family’s local silver-plating shop in Philadelphia. ‘The first light Picture ever taken,1839,’ the picture reads as it was the first ever Daguerreotypes in the America, according to the record on US government’s Library of Congress. “Robert Cornelius, self-portrait; believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo,” the description of the selfie reads.

Describing the procedure Cornelius followed to take the first-ever tricky photograph, the library wrote that he ran from one location to the other in search of candid lightening. He then “made this head-and-shoulders self-portrait using a box fitted with a lens from an opera glass”. In the portrait, he stood in a serious posture in front of the family's lamp for adequate brightness in the chandelier store, slightly away from the centre.

Early daguerreotypy required a long exposure time, ranging from three to fifteen minutes, making the process nearly impractical for portraiture, the library explained on the website. 

Interestingly, in 2013, the term ‘selfie’ had become the Oxford English Dictionary’s ‘word of the year’ but it had a long journey since Cornelius captured one more than a century ago. As early as in 2002, an Australian man inadvertently took a “selfie” after he clicked his own photograph while consulting with a doctor in order to show him the stitches he had from an injury. He used the term, selfie, which, according to Oxford implies “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically with a smartphone or webcam and uploaded to a social media website.”

Term's widespread usage among population

The term was made popular after linguists worldwide studied through it and its widespread usage among the population of the entire world. In Australia’s cultural trend, the words are often shortened for example tinnier for a beer can. As per reports, Cornelius had later on opened a photo shop, the first ever self portrait shop in the US. Later, in1914, Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia also captured a selfie to send across to an acquaintance. 

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[Original portrait of Robert Cornelius; believed to be the earliest extant American portrait photo. Credit: Library of Congress]

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