In his new book Levels of Life, which, among other things, is about the beginnings of photography, Julian Barnes comments on ‘one key difference between the sexes’:

when a couple who had been jointly photographed returned to examine their proofs, the wife always looked first at the portrait of her husband – and so did the husband.

Anything wrong with that?

Barnes continues that ‘most were inevitably disappointed when they finally saw a true image of themselves’. And I can relate to that, too.