Today is World Photography Day
A picture of horses on the beach for #WorldPhotographyDay
Today is World Photography Day, an annual, worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science, and history of photography.
I want to share this picture with you to celebrate photography. This photo may mean more to me than to you. I was there; I felt the wind and sand in my face. I looked over the broad empty beach, felt the isolation, and felt like being part of the scene you see here. I suppose a photographer often tries to give you the feeling of being a witness, that you are also briefly on this beach, feeling the space and peace of this moment. Soon after, the horses were gone; the beach, sea, and sky were about the same, but the magic was gone. For me, this represents the summer of 2021; it is likely the one that ends up on my desk this year.
August 19th
You may wonder why we celebrate this day on August 19th; it was on that day, in 1839, that the French government purchased the patent to the daguerreotype camera and made it free for use to the entire world. Only 13 years earlier, the Frenchman Joseph Nicephore Niepce took the first known permanent photograph: "View from the Window at Le Gras." He later teamed up with Louis Daguerre to make the daguerreotype camera, which became the foundation of camera developments and photographic treatments. Niepce himself may never have imagined how far photography developed after his sudden death from a stroke in 1833.
This is the first picture. I downloaded it from Wikimedia Commons, which kindly added a note that reads like an apology to those used to the ease of modern smartphone shots: "No higher resolution available."
To read more about the fascinating history of this picture, click here.
You can share your best photos on social media and tag using #WorldPhotographyDay.
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Notes:
https://photo-museum.org
https://www.worldphotographyday.com
first picture: Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=86004
Love the photo and thanks for sharing the history. Photographs bring back fond memories of people no longer with us but also happy memories of wonderful events or terrible catastrophes. They are the reflections of our lives. Your photographs also showed lovely places that I had never seen. Thanks for them and the informative articles.
Thank you! 😸
I love the picture of the horses on the beach. A black-and-white photo speaks differently than a colored one to me. I’m not sure how to describe it, but it seems to emphasize the content rather than the overall beauty of the scene. Of course I am of an age that when growing up I had a Brownie camera & took black & white pictures on film that was sent off for development. The ability to record photos has certainly changed since 1839!