This Might Be The First Selfie In Photographic History
As long as cavemen have been smearing stick figures on walls in Southern France, people have been making self-portraits. Who took the first 21st-century-style selfie, though? You know, that photographic self-portrait taken while holding a camera at arm's length? Given how most people take selfies , you'd probably think it was some 1990s teenage girl armed with an early Kodak digicam, or maybe a group of late-1960s flower children armed with a Polaroid camera. But no, 21st-century-style selfies are actually an early 20th-century affair. In fact, this photograph taken in December in 1920 might be the first modern selfie. Snapped in New York on the roof of the Marceau Studio on Fifth Avenue, across the street from St. Patrick's Cathedral, this picture features five mustached photographers holding an antediluvian analog camera at arm's length. Because this camera would have been too heavy to hold with one hand, Joseph Byron is propping it up on the le...