Selfie may be the Oxford English Dictionary’s 2013 word of the year, but photographers were taking “selfies” long before Smartphones and tablets.

In fact, selfie’s have long been a subject of photographers, painters, writers, and artists of every ilk. Selfies are and always have been a means of self-realization, as well as self-expression.

In this 1980’s Throwback Thursday image, I was snapping a selfie before I realized. At the time I was photo editor of The Reporter, Moorpark College’s student run newspaper, and the image was part of a self-portrait series by John Grzywacz-Gray, photojournalism advisor to the Reporter.