Four Years Later: Browse Through the First Photos Ever Posted to Instagram

Four years (and one day) ago, Kevin Systrom posted the first ever photo to Instagram, then a new social network with an uncertain future and exactly one photo of a cute dog in its archives.

Taken a few months before the app launched to the public at large, the photo shows Systrom’s long-time girlfriend Nicole Schuetz foot next to he Golden Retriever puppy @dolly at the Taco stand Tacos Chilakos. Both taco stand and girlfriend are revealed in the second and third photos ever uploaded to Instagram:

You can see the first three photos above, but swapping out the last letter in the URL with the next (Capital) letters in the alphabet takes you on a fascinating journey through the very first shots posted to the now-massive photo sharing site.

Systrom claims the first three photos (puppy, taco stand, girlfriend… clearly the man has his priorities straight), cofounder Mike Krieger snags the fourth and fifth spots, “public user #1” @abbot‘s photo of Systrom and Schuetz takes number six, and Schuetz herself grabs number seven:

From then on, the same cast of characters continue to make appearances through the end of the alphabet and beyond. To check it out for yourself, just click on the photos above and mess with the URL. It really is pretty cool to watch Systrom at work long before he pulled in an estimated $400 million from the Facebook acquisition.

(via TIME)