I’m working on a book where one of my main characters is a photographer in 1896. In the course of my research on cameras of the period I came across this image - and I have to ask - is this the first selfie?
It’s a woman, a mirror, and a box camera. The entire scene has the unmistakable energy of ‘I must document this moment’ – except the moment appears to be – herself. Which, frankly, is reassuring. It suggests the human urge to capture our own faces did not begin with front-facing cameras and mild panic about lighting.
I love the thought that somewhere in the 19th century a woman was doing the same mental arithmetic we do now: Is the background messy? Do I look stern? Is that a sensible expression or the face of someone who has just discovered how long an exposure actually is?
This is exactly the kind of detail that sneaks its way into my novel, Shifting Sands. My photographer isn’t just wandering about with an artistic temperament and a tragic past – he’s also lugging around fragile equipment, negotiating weather, negotiating people, and occasionally negotiating his own confidence while trying to look like he knows what he’s doing.
Which means I get to write scenes where the drama is coastal gothic … and the logistics are mildly ridiculous. Wind. Salt. A moody sky that looks perfect until you remember it’s going to ruin everything you own. A solemn moment on a cliffside that is immediately undercut by the very practical question: where, exactly, do you put the tripod when the ground is trying to slide into the sea?
And that’s why the ‘first selfie?’ question delights me. It’s not just a joke – it’s a tiny reminder that the past had the same human impulses we do, just with more patience, more metal, and significantly fewer second chances.
I don’t have a reference for this image (if you know its origin, tell me and I’ll happily credit it properly), but even without provenance it does what the best research finds do: it hands you a little spark of humanity. The past isn’t a museum – it’s somebody in a patterned dress, in a perfectly ordinary room, deciding to take control of her own image.
Last week I shared a link to my long short story The Wrong Miss Wilby on Eleven Reader. You can still listen for free here.
For those who prefer to read, I’ve now added the first chapter in text form here on Substack.
Thanks for reading (or listening)
Until the next story – where meaning hides in the margins.
Lily.