Erafy
Get the app

A 1900 box-camera snapshot of you

Pick a photo and the year 1900. Erafy makes a new picture of it with the gear of the day: a cardboard box camera or a glass plate, film blind to red and green, and a contact print a little over two inches square.

Download on the App Store

AI photo app · Free to download · iPhone · 18+

Sepia 1900 portrait of a woman in a high-collared blouse on a city street with horse carriages

Nobody in the examples is a real person — the before photos are invented faces. These are our best results, not average ones. Sometimes AI can't handle it and modifies your face. All we can offer is a try.

How photographs looked in 1900

In 1900 the snapshot was new. A cardboard box camera that sold for a dollar put six square frames of roll film into ordinary hands: a fixed-focus lens, a single shutter speed and, at first, no viewfinder, so you aimed by sighting lines on top of the box. Keener amateurs kept to glass plates, sharper and finer than film.

The film saw blue light and little else. Skies went blank white; lips, flushed cheeks and anything red printed dark, and leaves came out muddy. Only bright sun gave enough light, so people stood still at a distance, squinting, often full length, with the corners of the frame gone soft. Indoors meant a long exposure, camera propped on a table.

The print was a contact print, the size of the negative: neutral grey-black on developing-out paper, or a warm russet brown on gold-toned paper, the fashion of that year. Erafy draws a camera, a film and a paper at random, then ages the print a hundred and twenty-five years: faded contrast, a cream cast, a faint metallic sheen in the shadows, rust-brown spots.

With Situation on, the scene is the year's own: the barber's chair, a seaside promenade, a woman on her bicycle. Next come the 1910s, and for anything older than photography there are the crafts.

More from the 1900s

Before and after: a woman's street selfie, and a 1900 photograph of her in a lace dress, feathered hat and parasol on a Paris boulevard with the Eiffel Tower behind
1900 · Paris
Before and after: a couple on a forest hike, and the two of them in a 1900 seaside photograph by a pier
1900 · Couple
  • A 1900 photograph of a woman in a lace dress, feathered hat and parasol on a Paris boulevard, the Eiffel Tower behind
    Paris boulevard
  • A couple in a 1900 seaside photograph by a pier
    Couple · Seaside
  • A sepia 1900s photo of a woman with a lace parasol and a flowered hat in a garden
    Garden walk
  • A sepia 1900s studio portrait of a seated couple with a boy in a sailor suit and a girl with a hair bow
    Family portrait

  • 1900 · two seconds, silent

Other years

  • 1910 early colour photograph of a woman in a lace blouse seated at a garden table
    1910Glass plates, film packs and early colour plates
  • Black-and-white 1920s street portrait of a woman in a pale dress and a long pearl necklace
    1920Orthochromatic black and white
  • Sepia 1930s street photo of a woman in a floral dress holding a handbag
    1930Roll-film snapshots
  • Black-and-white 1940s street portrait of a woman in a tailored jacket
    1940Wartime black and white
  • Black-and-white 1950s street portrait of a woman in a cardigan and plaid skirt
    1950Black and white, and the first colour
  • Black-and-white 1960s street photo of a woman in a gingham sundress beside parked cars
    1960Colour slides and black and white
  • Faded 1970s colour photo of a woman in a floral blouse on a sunny street
    1970Warm, faded colour film
  • 1980s colour snapshot of a woman in a striped sweater in a bedroom with posters and a TV
    198035 mm colour, pocket cameras, flash
  • 1990s colour film photo of a woman in a green sweater and jeans on a campus street
    1990Drugstore colour film and disposables
  • 2000 colour snapshot with a date stamp: a woman in a lilac T-shirt on a campus walkway
    2000Date stamps and the first digital cameras
  • 2010 phone photo with a heavy vignette: a woman sitting by a city waterfront
    2010Early phone cameras
  • 2013 filtered phone selfie of a woman by a stone arch in a city park
    2013Retro filter apps
  • 2016 phone photo of a woman at a café table with a latte
    2016Phone portrait mode
  • 2019 phone photo of a woman on a beach at sunset
    2019Night mode and ultrawide
  • 2022 phone photo of a woman at a café with a latte
    2022The modern phone camera
  • 2025 phone photo of a woman at a café table with latte art
    2025Today's phones

Questions

Were photographs in 1900 black and white or brown?

Both. A snapshot printed on developing-out paper came out neutral grey-black. Printed by daylight on gold-toned paper it came out a warm russet to purplish brown, and that warm paper was at its peak in 1899 and 1900. Many prints have also yellowed since, so a photograph that began grey can read brown today.

Why do people in 1900 photographs stand so stiffly?

The box camera had a single shutter speed, around a fiftieth of a second, and a lens fixed on the middle distance, so it only worked in bright sun with a subject who stood still several feet away. Squinting, closed mouths and a full-length pose are what that gear produced.

What would I look like in the 1900s?

Erafy makes a new picture from your photo in the style of the year you pick, so how much it resembles you varies from one go to the next. It varies most in the black-and-white years and in the crafts before 1900, where faces are drawn in the craft's style. We make no promise about how any result will look.

The Erafy app icon

Pick a year

Free to download on the App Store.

Get the app