I grew up in the darkroom, where I used to spend hours developing Tri-X film, waiting for it to dry, and then inserting favorite frames into the enlarger, making a print and awaiting my time in the red-light adorned corner of the house, to see how it looked when it flipped from negative to positive.
I loved every minute of being there, (not the cleanup process, however) but don’t miss it. I’m taking more pictures (and video!) today than I ever did as a kid, and if you’re like me, I bet you’re sharing them with way many more people today than a few years back.
And thanks to the advances in camera technology in smartphones, they’re looking pretty great. Are they out of focus? Doubtful. Exposed correctly? You betcha. Are there problems? Of course there are, but way less than in the old days.
One spec of dust in the darkroom on my negative ruined the shot. Those days are long gone!
So World Photography Day, when we honor the creation of the camera and art form. Yes, there’s even a website for the made up holiday, and a push to share today’s photos with the #worldphotographyday hashtag.
On this day in 1839 the daguerreotype, the first practical photographic process , was invented, with images on silver. It wasn’t until 1888 that George Eastman introduced the first consumer camera, the Kodak, selling for what was a whopping $25 back then. Later came the Brownie, Instamatic, Leica and all those great cameras.
And look at us now! We’re taking 2 trillion photos yearly, 5.3 billion every day, or 61,800 per second, on 1.5 billion iPhones and 3.9 billion Android phones. In the U.S., where you’re probably reading this, most of us use iPhones. The Apple device has a 60% market share domestically.
Now granted, many of these snaps are turkeys, badly composed, poorly thought out, and often headed for the delete file. But many are fantastic, way better than I ever got as a kid in a darkroom working for hours on just one image.
Photos are pouring in from this month’s Photowalks photo contest, and I can’t tell you how impressed I am with what’s coming in. They are really impressive! I can’t wait to share the winner and runner-ups with you on Thursday September 3 at 8 p.m. ET, when I’ll reveal all on a live YouTube broadcast. I’ll get you the link and more details to you in the coming days.
You can read more about the contest below and sumbit here: https://forms.gle/2LXU3RcsegLx9HRv8
New Photowalks Photo Contest!
We took a brief pause on the physical giveaways for Photowalks when the sponsor gear and gift cards ran their course, but after hearing from so many readers and viewers, we decided to bring the contest back with a fresh focus: the Photowalks Photo Challenge
Meanwhile, Happy World Photography Day! I hope you get the same feeling I do pulling off the road and taking photos of giant sunflowers and corn stalks. There’s nothing like it! (If not, just get up out of your chair and take a walk around the block. You’ll be amazed by what you see!)
And enjoy the video above, shot in 4K iPhone Technicolor, in North and South Dakota, Minnesota and Iowa last week, with music by the great Paul Ellis.)
Jeff