Are you a photographer? Or are you searching for some astonishing facts about photography? If yes, then we have prepared a treat for you. We will tell you some unique and interesting facts about photography that you never knew before.
Get ready because this will be a fascinating journey. Let’s get started.
- The Largest Camera Collection
Consisting of 4425 historic cameras, a photojournalist named Dilish Parekh from Mumbai has the world’s most extensive camera collection. Having a camera collection is certainly not a bad hobby; we even collect stamps and coins. But Delish has gone ahead and taken the whole idea of collecting cameras to a new level.
He owns cameras from all over the world regardless of their condition. The oldest camera in his collection dates back to the 1850s, which was manufactured at London’s famous New Bond Street shop by Hans Mulich.
- The First Photo of a Person
You will be surprised to know that the first picture of a person (human) was accidental. Yes! You heard right. Louis Daguerre took the first-ever image of a human in 1928, albeit accidentally while trying to capture the photo of Boulevard Du Temple in Paris. In the photo, a silhouette was visible in the streets, getting his shoes polished. This silhouette was the shape of a human.
- The Tallest Structure Ever Photographed
It`s obvious to say that taller structures can be seen better by photographers on higher grounds like towers and skyscrapers. But if you think that the tallest structure ever photographed is a skyscraper or a tower, you are wrong.
The world’s tallest structure ever photographed was a 250 feet tall standing wave in the ocean located off the coast of Western Australia. The photo was shot from an altitude of 37000 ft by a passenger onboard a flight headed for Perth. It took 150 photos to construct this tremendous image.
- The Shortest Exposure Ever Taken
You will be amazed to learn that the shortest exposure ever taken has been just for 0.3 milliseconds. This exposure was captured by Dr. Richard Leakey using special equipment arranged by him at Lake Turkana in Kenya in 1984 while photographing some fossils under waterfalls and bright sunlight with his aide named Kamoya Kimeu.
- The First Photo of a Plant
For the first time ever, scientists took photos of plants way back in the 1880s by using the daguerreotype process that used silver plates. However, this was not something new for scientists. They had already started taking photos of plant life since the 1840s but they were not able to preserve them due to the unavailability of fixing chemicals at that time.
Later on, they shifted towards wet-plate photography, and finally, dry plate processes came into action which made it possible for further use and preservation of images taken by photographers.
- The First Digital Camera Was Invented in 1975
The digital camera is ubiquitous these days, but do you know that Steve Sasson invented the first digital camera in 1975. He was an employee of Eastman Kodak at that time. He built the first digital camera which used to take up to 60 pictures in one second and later transferred them on a cassette tape.
- The First Digital Camera Was Heavy
The first digital camera weighed around 8 pounds, almost 4 times the weight of a modern DSLR. It was because of this reason that the first digital cameras were only used by professionals and serious photographers.
- The First Digital Camera Was Expensive
You will be surprised to know that the first digital camera was extremely expensive. It cost $180,000 which is equivalent to $700,000 today after adjusting for inflation. This heavy price tag made its way towards the consumer market eventually in the 1990s and early 2000s when costs of processing and storage decreased dramatically which led manufacturers to develop cheaper versions.
- How Many Photographs Are Taken Every Day?
Telling the exact number of photos taken every day is impossible. But the research has shown that more than 1 Trillion photos are taken every year. Around 95 million people share their photos on Instagram daily, and almost 300 million people upload their photos on Facebook. Smartphones have played a significant role in this regard. It is estimated that 1.2 trillion photos will be taken in 2019 only.
- The First Colored Photograph
Thomas Sutton was the guy who gave the idea about the first colored picture in 1861. To achieve this, he used three separate layers of red, blue, and green and projected them on a photosensitive plate. Thomas is also the inventor of the first SLR camera and the primary panoramic camera. He has made major contributions to the photographic world.
- The First Flashes
This is not only interesting but also the most dangerous fact related to photography. The photographers used to mix Aluminium and Potassium Chloride to create a spark for the flash. But this combination can also explode if not mixed properly.
- The First Photographs of the Moon
Wollaston was the one who took the first pictures of the moon way back in 1851. But due to inferior quality, he couldn’t give a perfect view of lunar features visible on the photos. Later on, it became possible after using photography which has higher resolution and more light sensitivity.
- World’s Most Expensive Photo
Andreas Gursky captured the world’s most expensive photo named Rhein II in 1999. It was sold for a whopping 4.3 million dollars in 2011 during an auction. On that photo depicted in a giant format, an American was in the center of the photo who is standing on a bridge in Duesseldorf holding a big cup of beer in his hand.
- Kodak Doesn’t Mean Anything
Mostly the name of a brand has a strong relation to their niche, but you will be surprised to know that Kodak, albeit famous, does not mean anything. The founder of Kodak, Georg Eastman, said he used this name because the alphabet K looked strong. This is how the unusual name of the famous brand was born.
- The Biggest Photographer of All Time
Kaveh Golestan is a photographer from Iran and he has set the Guinness World Record for this category. He had made an incredible 3,428,732 images on his Flickr account in 2012 which is way ahead of many other photographers including me! I am just proud that my photos on 500px have been viewed by more than 100,000 people.
- The Most Expensive Photo Book of All Time
There are many books published about special types of things, but none comparable to The Polaroid Collection which has been published last year. It contains around 100 photos shot by Andy Seliverstoff using an Airborne instant camera on format “6×8” and each copy costs $5500.
- The Whole Story in a Single Photo
This is one of the most surprising facts about photography that is not only amazing but will also blow your mind. In a single photo, you can see the whole story. The photo named Momento Mori by Andrew Quilty was taken in September 2012 and it symbolizes the end of a war between two tribes from Afghanistan - Hazaras, and Tajiks. Two men lay dead on the traditional Persian rug as if they were asleep.
But later during an autopsy, they found out that those people had been brutally murdered inside their own house.
- Photo with Most Copies Sold
Every year many pictures are sold at costly prices, but nothing compares to 1958’s famous picture “Kissing Sailor”. The photographer, Alfred Eisenstaedt captured this photo in Times Square when a sailor was kissing a nurse to celebrate his return from World War II. Later on, almost 100 million copies have been sold around the world.
- The Longest Exposure Time Ever Used by Humans
If you are interested in facts about photography then try to imagine that the longest time ever used by humans for taking one photo is not more than 30 years. Apparently, this picture was captured in 1977 by Stephen Wilkes on New York`s Times Square.
He gave the title “Day to Night” and people were surprised when they saw such a long exposure time (about 32 hours). The photo depicts all transitions from day to night and vice versa.
- Photographer Who Never Settles Down
Esther Bubley is an acclaimed American photographer who has traveled across America and Europe with her Rolleiflex camera between 1940 and 1960s. She never settles down even for a single moment because she hates traveling in cars; instead always went on foot or bikes wherever possible! Finally, she died last year but left behind an amazing collection of photos that were published in 1999.
- First Photoshop on the photo
The First time Photoshop was used on the photo was in 1990 by Peter Schneider. The photographer wanted to remove a distracting element from his composition, so he just did it using Adobe Photoshop! He removed the power lines while still maintaining the original scene that took place in Nuremberg.
- A Photographer who is Blind
Have you ever come across anyone who is blind and an expert at photography? Well, if not then meet Doug Draft who has been blind since he was 6 years old but can make perfect photos because of his GPS device (attached to his camera) which tells him about the distance between two objects. This helps him take beautiful landscape shots.
- The Most Expensive Selfie
It is not a secret that nowadays everyone loves to take selfies, especially celebrities! The most expensive selfie was taken by Justin Bieber. He paid $200K just to have a picture with Steph Curry. This photo was captured for Paper magazine in 2015.
- The Biggest Camera Ever Made
Hawk Bradna is an American photographer who managed to make the biggest camera ever made earlier this year. It has been built on his own property and it used exterior panels of second-hand Boeing 747-400 aircraft which are now retired from active service.
He used these giant planes because they are capable of carrying anything under their wings; however, he had trouble finding pilots for this task as everyone thought that it would be impossible to fly with such a big plane.
- The Smallest Camera Ever Made
It is called the Olympus Stylus Epic, which you can buy for $230. It`s smaller than an AA battery and it has only 0.08 megapixels but still captures wonderful images. You can even capture photos in its built-in flashlight! The Olympus Stylus Epic uses small sizes to take high-quality pictures despite having such a tiny sensor (the same size as of Super 8 movies).
To get higher resolution, the camera relies on making many more pixel readings (up to 20 per one image) and blending them together into bigger pixels during the scanning process. This gives extraordinary results compared to other ordinary cameras available at this price point.
So there you have it: some unique and astonishing facts about photography that we bet that you didn’t know before reading our article! We hope that you enjoyed reading this post as much as we enjoyed writing it. Please tell us your thoughts in the comments section