I Was Taking Selfies Before It Was Cool

Back in the dark ages of film and clunky plastic hunks of cameras (circa 1991), I tried something I had never seen before - holding the camera backwards and seeing what I could capture when it was turned on Susan and me...then dropped my film off to be developed and waited. The result may be a little out of focus, but it was ahead of its time and foreshadowed the modern age of "influencers" and legions of narcissists who post Instagram selfies at every turn of their lives. For that, I wish I could turn back the hands of time, but I would still keep this photo.

Fast forward the clock by quite a few years to the emerging age of digital cameras and the inevitable death of film, I did the same thing on my daughter's first day of school in 2005 - before forward facing screens and cameras in mobile phones. The result was better and quite a tear jerker because I watched her confidently walk into elementary school for the first time. It was so prolific we recreated the same picture on her first day of her last year in high school as well.