World Photography Day

Today is World Photography Day.

On August 19, 1839, the day when the technique refined by Louis Daguerre — known as the daguerreotype — was presented at a meeting at the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Fine Arts, is canonically considered the birthdate of photography.

In the following decades, technological progress made photography accessible to more and more people, to the point where today it permeates every aspect of our lives.

To make a simple comparison, more photos are taken every second today than were taken throughout the entire 19th century.

Over time, photography has become the most democratic form of art: anyone with a smartphone can take a photo.

What, in my opinion, sets photography apart from all other arts is that, by its very nature, photography is a subtractive art. The photographer’s role is not to add a note to a score or a brushstroke to a canvas, but to choose what not to frame in their shot, what to subtract. It’s almost ironic that an art form so focused on what to exclude wasn’t even capable of including color at its inception.

But the subtractive power of photography doesn’t stop there. As Dorothea Lange once said:

«Photography takes an instant out of time, altering life by holding it still.» Dorothea Lange

Photography takes an instant out of time.

There’s still much more to say about this art form, which perhaps more than any other has defined the contemporary age, but I’d say it’s time to go out and photograph something.

Good light!