World Photography Day: History, Significance and why it is observed

This picture has been used for representational purpose

August 19 is celebrated as World Photography Day. The day is observed to inspire photographers and photography enthusiasts to 'share their world' with people. Here's how photography developed throughout the years.

As technology developed over the years, photography has also evolved in terms of aesthetics, angles and quality of pictures. From various techniques used in printing images from the camera to using camera phones and sharing on social media, photography and the way it has been appreciated by enthusiasts has seen a plethora of changes.

History

World Photography Day is observed as it originates to the invention of Daguerreotype. It is a photographic process that was developed in 1837 by Louis Daguerre and Joseph Nicephore Niepce. Almost two years later, on January 9, 1839, the French Academy of Sciences acknowledged the Daguerreotype and the French government bought the patent of the process and called the invention as 'a gift to the world'.

However, Daguerreotype was not the only process used for producing permanent photography. Niepce is known to have used ‘heliography' to capture the earliest form of permanent photograph called "View from the Window at Le Gras" in 1826.

Use of colour in photographs

Although images were earlier captured in monochrome, the use of colour was introduced in photography in 1861 when Thomas Stutton captured the durable colour photograph. It was a set of monochrome pictures taken through red, green and blue filters. However, the quality of the picture taken was said to be imperfect as the emulsions used in photography that time were insensitive to the spectrum. Thus the demonstration by Stutton was soon forgotten.

The first selfie

The first self-portrait or selfie was taken in 1839 by Robert Cornelius from the United States, who took it by setting up his camera, removed its lens cap and ran to the frame. He wrote in the back of the photograph, "The first light picture ever taken 1839".

Photography goes digital

The first digital photograph was taken in 1957 by American engineer Russell Kirsch who took a digital scan of the picture of his son taken on film that had a resolution of 176x176. Twenty years after this pioneering invention, an engineer of Kodak invented the first ever digital camera.

On August 19, 2010, World Photography Day was widely celebrated for the first time by World Photo Day hosting its first global online gallery on its website. Pictures shared by almost 270 photographers from over 100 countries were displayed on the website for this occasion.

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