The history of the camera

Throughout this lesson, you’ve learnt about the various inventors that contributed to the art of photography. Choose one, do some additional research and, in your own words, write a report on why you think the chosen inventor contributed to modern photography.

Explain your research and choice of inventor.

After reading through Lesson 1.1 The history of photography there was one sentence about George Eastman that made my decision to write about him. The sentence goes:

“(…) This changed the face of photography forever, especially because ordinary citizens could now take photographs.”

That photography became something anyone could do no matter how intelligent or wealthy you were spoke to me. Taking a good photo and being creative shouldn’t be something just for the rich people.

Elaborate on the inventor’s contribution/s.

Eastman’s story starts with a plan to travel to Santo Domingo where a co-worker suggested that he should record his trip. The camera at the time was huge and involved a heavy tripod.

Eastman never went on the trip, but after buying the camera equipment he became obsessed with making photography easier. Eastman experimented on his mother’s kitchen for years before he came up with a dry plate formula and a machine for preparing a large number of dry plates.

After this ball started rolling.

Eastman introduced the Kodak camera in 1888 and made it possible for anyone to take pictures with a handheld camera by just pressing a button. He described it as they “were making photography an everyday affair and making the camera as convenient as the pencil”.

The camera was pre-loaded with enough film for 100 exposures, it was handheld, priced at 25$ and the consumer sent the whole camera in to get the film developed – all for 10$. As his slogan said:

You press the button, we do the rest.

Most Americans could still not afford the 25$ dollar camera so Eastman continued the work to get the costs down and improve the quality.

Here came the Kodak Brownie which took the world by storm:

Just think about how many talented photographers we could have missed if it wasn’t accessible to everyone? Sure, most famous photographers today use expensive equipment, but I’m sure they started out with something easier and cheaper.

“In Britain it cost just 5 shillings (25p), bringing it within the reach of practically everyone. Indeed, it was so cheap that adverts had to reinforce the fact that it wasn’t a toy.“

Like they write on the page of the metropolitan museum of art:

“By simplifying the apparatus and even processing the film for the consumer, he made photography accessible to millions of casual amateurs with no particular professional training, technical expertise, or aesthetic credentials.“

Rosenberg writes in an article in ThoughtCo that the Brownie changed the culture forever, making room for new careers such as photojournalism and fashion photographer and giving artists another medium to express themselves.

Harding writes in a blogpost for science media museum that many famous photographers say that their first interest in photography can be traced back to be given a Brownie camera as a child.

Kodak gave life to the “snapshot” photos, where regular people take pictures of everyday life, which we now take for granted since we all are equipped with cameras on our phone.