World Photography Day

"Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face, the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited, and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man." ~~ Edward Steichen "A great photograph is a full expression of what one feels about what is being photographed in the deepest sense and is thereby a true expression of what one feels about life in its entirety." ~~ Ansel Adams

"To me, the magic of photography, per se, is that you can capture an instant of a second that couldn't exist before and couldn't exist after. It's almost like a cowboy that draws his gun. You draw a second before or after, you miss and you're dead - not them. To me, photography's always like that." ~~ Mario Testino

In a world where millions of pictures are uploaded every minute, World Photo Day is inspiring thousands of photographers across the planet to share a single photo with a simple purpose: to share their world with the world.

From everyday life to incredible landscapes, our global gallery is an evolving mosaic of images captured by photographers of all skills levels living in a diverse range of countries and cultures.

No matter who you are, where you are or what equipment and skills you have, World Photo Day can help open your eyes to the possibilities of photography, and enable you to share the world as you see it.

Imagine what would it be like to live in a world without photographs. There would be no way to explore different corners of the globe without visiting them, no option of sharing your life with your loved ones, no expression describing a thousand words in a single frame – in short, no visually documented reality.

Today, photography has become an unimaginable part of our lives and has evolved into being a tool that connects us all. In that spirit, people across the world are celebrating 177 years of photography with World Photography Day on August 19.

The soft click of the camera, a flash of light and a moment in time captured forever. Maybe digitally, maybe on film, the medium is never as important as the memory or moment caught. A group of people, a Jungle,a sunset, or even a fish jumping out of the water, a photograph is a way to feel the emotion and context of that exact moment. Celebrate that, on this picturesque Photography Day!

History of Photography Day The photograph originally was made by Nicéphore Niépce, using silver chloride coating a piece of paper. However, the photo would eventually turn fully dark as he knew no way to remove the silver chloride from the paper to preserve the photo. Photographs got better and better over the years, first with the ‘still camera’, and the ability to take a picture that way. Think the old west in America, and that camera’s differences to the ones of World War 2, then compare them to modern cameras. The major jumps in technology affected photography as much as any other facet of life around the world. With Kodak, Canon and so many other brands out there, it was of no surprise when the market of photography got such a jump, even more so with the military and surveillance capabilities offered as cameras got better, lighter and more easily used. Yet for all the innovation and creativity, science and even the large amount of art that occurs in the photography realm, not much can beat the simple pleasure of snapping photos and developing your frames to enjoy the integrity of the photos.

How to celebrate Photography Day Why not go out and snap a few pictures yourself? Find an older camera, and enjoy the feel, and look, of 35mm film. Walk around and snap some pictures to preserve the time in photographic form. Make a collage, which is a mixture of pictures, sometimes cut into different shapes than the usual rectangles of photos. Go snap some wildlife, either in the wild or at a zoo. Maybe some family photos wouldn’t be out of the question; and you could even use them in the yearly holiday cards in place of the stock sitting stills. Or go see a museum about photography, if you have one nearby to visit. Many museums have cameras in them, and some even explain the use of photography in major events worldwide. How do you think they get the pictures of these events anyways? With a camera of course! So go out there, snap some photos and maybe record a piece of history on this year’s Photography Day!

Top 10 facts about photography:

1. The date celebrates August 19, 1839, when the French government bought the patent for the daguerreotype and released it “free to the world”.

2. The daguerreotype, invented in 1837, was the first practical photographic process.

3. The earliest known permanent photographic image, however, was created by a more complex process called heliography in 1826.

4. The exposure time needed to create that photograph was eight hours.

5. Thanks to digital cameras on mobile phones, more than 350 billion photos are now taken worldwide every year.

6. Around 250 billion photographs have been uploaded to Facebook.

7. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had a darkroom installed at Windsor Castle to indulge their passion for photography.

8. The first photo of the Moon was in 1851; the first photo of its dark side was in 1959.

9. The earliest known use of the word ‘photograph’ was in 1839 by the astronomer Sir John Herschel.

10. The earliest known use of the abbreviation ‘photo’ was by Queen Victoria in a letter in 1860.