Lantern slides were the visual entertainment of choice for over two centuries before the first photographs made their appearance. These were coloured or black and white pictures which were projected onto a blank wall using a lamp or candle.
The first long-lasting photograph was "The View From The Window at LeGras" by Nicephore Nepce back in 1826 and called for an eight hour exposure.
In the 186 years since then, over 3.5 trillion pictures have actually been taken.
The first colour photography was of a Scottish tartan ribbon in 1861 and it was taken by Scottish Physicist James Clerk Maxwell.
The first moving image was taken by Eadweard Muybridge in 1878 utilizing a series of trip wires as a horse galloped.
In 1888 George Eastman’s first Kodak camera included a 20 foot roll of paper - enough for one hundred 2.5" diameter round photos.
In 1889, they improved the camera so that it contained rolls of celluloid film rather than paper.
In 1890, the Kodak Brownie box roll film camera was put on sale and it cost $1.
Professional portrait photography grew rapidly although it was now feasible to take snaps at home, particularly with the intervention of the world wars when everyone wished a proper keepsake of the loved ones they may never ever see again.
And many of the portrait photographers themselves entered into the war effort as sound rangers working out the position of enemy weapons with acoustic waves onto celluloid film well before radar was devised.
In 1960, NASA transferred from analog to digital signals when they mapped the face of the moon. The improvement in computer technology meant that NASA used computer systems to boost the images delivered by the space probes.
1972 saw Texas Instruments receiving a patent for the first film-free electronic camera.
In 1981, Sony released the first retail electronic still camera - known as the Mavica. Images were recorded onto a mini disc and then put into a video reader attached to a tv monitor or colour printer. In reality it was in fact a video camera that took video stills.
The first customer level digital cameras worked with a computer via a serial cable. First up was Apple’s QuickTake 100 on 17 February 1994, next came Kodak’s DC40 on March 28 1995, Casio’s QV-11 in late 1995 and the Sony Cyber Shot digital still camera in 1996.
It was a sign of the times that, by 2011, of the 380 billion photographs taken, only 4billion of those used analogue.
73% of digital camera owners will take a photograph at least once a month with 83% of these using some form of computer software to edit those shots, but nine out of ten smart phone owners will also take that one photo per month and 15% of those will then edit the image on their phone too.
These days, the arrival of cameras in mobile phones in addition to the rise of social media, means that 300 million photos are published to Facebook every day and 26 images to Instagram per second.
Amazing statistics!
However, it does mean that there are a lot of people who believe they can style themselves professional photographers, so make sure you select a professional to record the images for the happiest day of your life.
