19th August is World Photo Day

S Balakrishnan *

A daguerreotype of Daguerre around 1844

Once a costly luxury unaffordable by everyone, now the handy mobile camera has given the joy of photography to one and all that more than 54,000 photos are taken every second around the world! And it is estimated that a large portion of this, i.e., about 95 million photos a day, are shared on Instagram alone!

Possessed by Selfie mania some people even lose their lives. In this mindless clicking & sharing, let us spare a few minutes to know about August 19 being observed as World Photography Day.

It was on 19th August 1839 that the French Academy of Sciences gifted the ‘Daguerreotype’ process of photo printing to the world. This printing process was developed by Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre in 1837. He was a French artist and photographer. His process produced a positive image recorded on a copper plate coated with silver iodide. Daguerreotypes were cast onto solid copper metal plates.

He sold his invention to the French Academy of Sciences in exchange for an annual pension of 6,000 francs. The process was announced on 7 January 1839; some seven months later, on August 19, 1839, the process was declared 'free to the world' by the French Academy of Sciences. But Great Britain was excluded because Daguerre’s agent had filed a patent there.

But it was Joseph Nicéphore Niépce who was the actual pioneer of photographic process. An inventor, he and Daguerre were business partners. Niepce invented the heliography method of photo printing.

Niépce's photo ‘View From The Window At Le Gras’ that was printed on a polished sheet of pewter (a grey metal made of lead and tin) plate coated with light-sensitive bitumen in 1826 is the earliest surviving permanent image from nature. (Those interested can view this unique photo by searching it in the Net; it is quite faded and unclear.)

Niépce passed away in 1933 and, four years later, Daguerre developed his own unique process in 1837 that came to be known as ‘Daguerreotype’ after his name. Daguerre ensured that an annual stipend of 4,000 francs was paid to the Niépce estate by the French Academy of Sciences.

Glass negative, 1920

Daguerre has the credit of recording the first image of a human being – knowingly or unknowingly. His photo ‘View Of The Boulevard du Temple’ that he took from the window of his apartment in Paris in 1838 is acclaimed as a unique example of early street photography; though it was a busy Parisian street filled with people and carriages, the 10-15 minute exposure meant that none of them stayed still for long enough to be recorded.

However, the one exception was a man having his shoes polished (appearing in the bottom-left corner of the photo). Did Daguerre ask him to pose or that man was at the right place at the right time? (This rare photo is also available on the Net).

The credit for Aug. 19 being celebrated as World Photo Day, however, goes to our own Indian photographer, O.P. Sharma. It struck him in 1988 that 19th August (1839) was a milestone day in the history of photography.

From then on he took up the idea to celebrate Aug. 19 as World Photography Day but it was only in 1991 that it was decided to observe Aug. 19 as such. Sharma’s continuous efforts with world renowned photographers and Photographic Societies at last helped him achieve his desired goal.

The theme for World Photography Day 2024 is ‘An Entire Day’, as if we are not clicking throughout the day. In this digital age it is not possible to print all the photos that we click. Just imagine if we were to print all the 470,01,60,000 photos taken around the world every day!

No doubt photography has helped tremendously in various fields like arts, science, history, journalism and personal expression. Well, as long as the ‘Selfie’ mania does not exceed the daily quota and safety norms, it is well and good.

As a lover of photography I have some old family photographs with me; the rarest among them is a glass negative that could be more than 100 years old, because glass negatives were used only till the 1920s.