The person credited with taking the world's first "selfie" (a self-portrait photograph) is Robert Cornelius, an American photography pioneer. In October 1839, just months after the daguerreotype process was publicly announced, Cornelius set up his camera in the yard behind his family's lamp store in Philadelphia. Because early photographic processes required extremely long exposure times, he had to remove the lens cap, run into the frame, and sit perfectly still for roughly three to fifteen minutes before running back to replace the cap. On the back of the original plate, which is now preserved in the Library of Congress, he wrote: "The first light picture ever taken. 1839." His disheveled hair and off-center pose give the image a surprisingly modern, candid feel that predates the digital "selfie" era by over 170 years.