Lily Cole With Giant Camera (2004) by Tim Walker

Tim Walker found inspiration for this shoot in a 1924 Vogue illustration, which showed models appearing to come alive from the pages of a magazine. Set designer Simon Costin based the giant camera on Walker’s 35mm Pentax K1000

Suzy Parker, Dress by Nina Ricci, Champs-Élysées, Paris (1962) by Richard Avedon

In this staged scene, US photographer Richard Avedon mocks the very industry in which he played such a major role with a model caught inside a car by a frenzied crowd of paparazzi

John French and Daphne Abrams in a tailored suit (TV Times, 1957) by John French

Fashion photographer John French often left the actual release of the shutter to his assistants. Here, he has inserted himself into the picture, kneeling behind a tripod-mounted Rolleiflex, contrasting playfully with the polished elegance of the model

Weegee the Famous (1963) by Richard Sadler

In the 1940s, New York press photographer Weegee began stamping the backs of his photographs with ‘Weegee the Famous’. The Zenit 3M he holds to his eye here was a newly introduced Russian camera

Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite (1974) by Judy Dater

Judy Dater met Imogen Cunningham, a prominent American photographer, in 1964. Cunningham was a mentor to Dater, and the two became close friends. This image is from Dater’s larger series addressing the theme of voyeurism

Bill Brandt With His Kodak Wide-Angle Camera (1945) by Laelia Goehr

Goehr learned photography from Brandt, and here she captured him posing with his new wide-angle Kodak. The camera was originally used by police to photograph crime scenes, but Brandt experimented with it to produce a series of distorted nude studies

Au Franc Pinot, Quai Bourbon 1 (1901–02) by Eugène Atget

Many of Eugène Atget’s views of Paris include apparently unintended features, such as the reflection of the camera in this shopfront. His work acquired artistic status in the mid-1920s when it was ‘discovered’ by artists associated with surrealism

Clementina Maude, 5 Princes Gardens; Photographic Study’ (1862–63) by Lady Clementina Hawarden

Lady Hawarden, a noted amateur photographer of the 1860s, frequently used her children as subjects. Here, her daughter Clementina Maude poses next to a mirror, in which a bulky camera is reflected, making this a mother-daughter portrait of sorts

Venetian Mirror (1853) by Charles Thurston Thompson

Charles Thurston Thompson was the first official photographer of the South Kensington Museum, as the V&A was originally called, where he documented works on loan including this Venetian mirror

Unknown Photographer (1940s)

As this anonymous snapshot demonstrates, the camera has proved to be an irresistible subject for generations of amateur photographers – the selfie is not simply a 21st-century phenomenon