Remember the time when a camera only held around 32 shots of film roll? That was decades ago but now, having close to unlimited shots has become a reality. We started with memory cards with 32MB of storage and like everything that's tech-related, we now have 1TB microSD cards readily available. Look at the food you're about to eat, the landscape you're about to explore, and the familiar faces you've shared frames with. Not considering World Photography Day, more often than not, we've snapped photos of them at the moment we felt immortalizing the moment. And it doesn't stop there. Photography involves sharing the photos you took to other people. More often than not, this is now done via various social media platforms we have access to.
World Photography Day's Inception
It all started when Lois Daguerre and Joseph Nicephore Niepce invented the Daguerrotype in 1837. It's a photographic process that, much to the delight of the entire world, was given copyright-free. From there, World Photography Day unofficially got its traction. Numerous people started experimenting with this new way of preserving the moment. The first unofficial selfie was taken in 1839 by Robert Cornelius. Imagine the speed you need to have for removing the lens cap and then running into the frame. Numerous iterations were later invented up until we arrived to today's hi-res cameras that, most if not all, fit the palm of our hands. You can even have a dash cam in your car nowadays!
Photography in the Modern World
You've set up your latest gaming PC? Boy, you need to take a pic of it; or even a couple more if you're aiming to get the best angles. You've bought Nvidia RTX's latest card? Why not snap a photo of it inside your glorious PC-Master-Race case? Having a mobile phone handy, or even a tablet, really provides the convenience of sharing memorable moments. Are those deserving of being included in the gallery of World Photography Day? Though the importance of your subjects is a topic for another day, one thing's for sure. Being able to whiff out your phone to get that shot of someone suddenly doing a flash mob dance, beats having to lug around a film-based SLR.
We cannot deny that enthusiast and professional grade DSLR systems offer better control and fine tuning but for the average person, having a smartphone with a relatively good camera sensor is more than enough. After all, the photos we upload on most social media platforms don't require to be large enough to fill an entire Hollywood billboard. World Photography Day is not about having the flashiest gears; it's about sending a message to your viewers.
Old School Versus New School
There would always be comparisons on which tool is better and that's understandable. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you have a decade-old Yashica system or the latest Fujifilm mirrorless camera or Apple's latest iPhone. It's all about the message you want to share to the world through your device's lens. As we celebrate World Photography Day, take a look around and take a snap of something or someone you'd like to remember in the years to come.
