Amateur chemist and photography enthusiast Robert Cornelius, from Philadelphia, took the self- portrait in his family's silver-plating shop in the city. There was no remote shutter release on the primitive camera - a Daguerreotype invented by Frenchman Louis Daguerre - so Robert had to scamper in front of the equipment after removing the cover on the lens. He wrote on the back of the photo: "The first light picture ever taken. 1839." Considering that he was making history, he doesn't look all that chuffed - maybe it was because he had to stand still for up to 15 minutes for the portrait. Or maybe it was because he had an inkling that some celebs would one day make the selfie such a self-indulgent yawnfest. Robert's picture is kept in the Library of Congress in Washington DC.