If you think selfies are something new, think again. It's just the word selfie that's newly recognized. Among the approximately 34,000 images in the Leslie Jones Collection at the Boston Public Library (BPL) are hundreds of photos, both serious and fun-loving, that Leslie Jones (1886-1967) took of himself.
This one looks the most like the selfies we see today. His notes only enable curators to date it as between 1934 – 1956 and it is one of his more serious and formal portraits.
He seemed just as likely to set up a spoof like this one from 1938 showing him and his camera in a horse suit.
Here's a photo from 1930 showing him in the darkroom where he must have spent many hours developing, dodging, burning, and cropping his photos. When you think about the catalog of work he produced, remember this was all done on film.
This photo from 1929 is titled, "Prof. Leslie R. Jones with his Graflex camera." I wonder what he would have thought of the mobile phones with built in cameras after years of lugging this monster around. And, remember, his selfie stick was likely a heavy duty tripod.
From 1927-1928, here is "Leslie Jones and "Smut" showing some tricks, New London, N.H." He was clearly a dog person with lots of photos of his canine family members and many more of himself with family, friends, and fellow photographers.
As they have time and resources, the BPL keeps adding to their digitized collection from throughout the library. The Leslie Jones Collection, in particular, has fascinated me for years and, in part, inspired my work photographing the architecture of Boston's Back Bay and Beacon Hill neighborhoods to document the way they look in our time.
Do you have an Amazon Gift Certificate to use? Or do you need to buy one for a gift? Remember to click over to Amazon
Details:
Words: Penny Cherubino
Photography: Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.