4. First Self-Portrait Photograph
Daguerre’s methods inspired countless people to take up this new and amazing hobby. The oldest self-portrait known is of Robert Cornelius. When Daguerre announced his invention of a photographic method to the French Academy of Sciences in August 1839, the news spread like wildfire. That October, a young Philadelphian, Robert Cornelius, working out of doors to take advantage of the light, made this head-and-shoulders self-portrait using a box fitted with a lens from an opera-glass.
Cornelius was an amateur chemist and photography enthusiast from Philadelphia. But on that day in October, he decided to make history. He set up his camera at the back of the family store in Philadelphia. Cornelius took the image by removing the lens cap and then running into frame where he sat for a minute before covering up the lens again. On the back of the image, he wrote “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.”
