#1 1945. 10-Year-Old Stoic Japanese Boy Standing At Attention Having Brought His Dead Younger Brother To A Cremation Pyre, Nagasaki
Photography allows us to travel all the way back to the 1820s—that’s when the first-ever picture was taken. The French scientist Joseph Nicéphore Niépce did that by using heliography—a process of applying sunlight to draw—and a pewter plate. Taking the picture took several hours, but the image, titled View from the Window at Le Gras, marked the beginning of modern photography.
Back in the day, taking a picture required a bit more than a split second. Roughly until the 1840s, you would have had to stand still for 20 minutes for someone to photograph you. Can you imagine trying to take a family portrait or a picture of your cat under such circumstances?
#2 1961. East German Soldier Ignores Orders To Let No One Pass By Helping A Young Boy Cross The Newly Built Berlin Wall, To Reunite With His Family
#3 Anna Coleman Ladd Was An American Sculptor Who Is Best Known For Her Work Creating Prosthetic Masks For Soldiers Who Were Disfigured During World War I
Nowadays, you can take a picture in the blink of an eye. You can also do it nearly anywhere, anytime, as most people now use camera phones. Able to fit in your pocket, they are undeniably more convenient than dragging around large pieces of equipment or trying to force the world to stop for 20 minutes so you can take a photograph.
The cameras on phones developed in leaps and bounds over the years. The first one was the SCH-V200 model introduced by Samsung back in 2000. It allowed users to take up to 20 pictures at 0.35-megapixel resolution. Now, just over a couple of decades later, the average resolution of a phone camera is 12 megapixels, and the number of pictures one can store is way higher than 20.
#4 The Kiss Of Life. 1967
According to Phototutorial, an average smartphone user has roughly 2,100 pictures on their device. The number is not that shocking, considering that people take nearly 93% of photos with their cellphones and only 7% use a camera.
Taking photographs was mostly a job for professionals years ago when it required working with certain chemicals. But now, more people can capture beautiful moments with the help of constantly developing technology.
#6 1976. Soviet Explorer, Nikolai Machulyak, Feeding A Polar Bear And Her Cubs With Condensed Milk And Meat, Near Cape Schmidt Off The Coast Of The Chukchi Sea
#7 1954. Cats Stand Up On Their Hind Legs To Catch Squirts Of Milk During Milking At A Dairy Farm. Photo By Nat Farbman
#8 Beatles Fans In 1964 And 2013. Ringo Starr Took The Top Photo From Car Window, After The High School Friends Skipped School To See The Beatles During Their First Trip To The Us In 1964
Phototutorial also revealed that people worldwide take an astonishing number of 57,246 pictures per second, which equals roughly 5 billion per day. So far, 12.4 trillion photos have been taken throughout the years, some of them capturing significant historical events.
#9 C. 1910. Native American Blackfoot Warriors At Glacier National Park, On The Shore Of St. Mary Lake, Montana. Photo By Roland W. Reed
#10 Members Of The Red Warriors – A French Youth Anti-Fascist Street Gang That Used Violent Force To Combat The Surge Of Neo-Nazi Violence From France In The Mid To Late 1980s
Some images portraying significant historical events or periods became known all over the world. For instance, the picture of a couple kissing taken by Alfred Eisenstaedt in 1945, titled V-J Day In Times Square. Or the Tank Man—a photo taken by Jeff Widener in 1989.
#12 1839. The Oldest Known Photographic Portrait Of A Human In The USA, Taken As Self-Image By Photography Pioneer Robert Cornelius. He Had To Remain Motionless For 10 To 15 Minutes To Capture The Photograph
#14 C. 1910. Child Miners Photographed By Lewis Hine. Hine’s Photographs Were Instrumental In Bringing About The Passage Of The First Child Labor Laws In The United States
Some of the globally well-known images immortalized important moments of pop culture as well. One of the greatest examples of that was the cover for the Beatles’ Abbey Road album cover. It was taken by Iain MacMillan in August of 1969 as the band members were crossing Abbey Road in London.
#15 C. 1929. A Little Girl Hands Lilies To A Police Officer On Duty At The Porte Saint-Denis In Paris
Certain historical pictures mark significant milestones in developing the process of photography itself. The first self-portrait, which could be considered the predecessor of the selfie, is a great example of that. Robert Cornelius, a chemist from Philadelphia, is believed to have taken the first portrait of such a kind back in 1839.
#18 1967. Kangaroo Hits A Photographer For Trying To Photograph Him, England. Photo By Voller Ernst
#19 1945. Boys Hanging On A Full Train After The Liberation Of Holland. Photography By Menno Huizinga
#20 September 1945. Australian Soldiers Catch Up On News From Home After Their Release From Japanese Captivity In Singapore
Whether it’s a portrait or not, you might have noticed that not many people would smile in photographs back in the day. Now, it is typical to put on a happy face for taking a picture (followed by a moment of awkward silence after everyone is done saying “cheeeeeeese”), but it wasn’t always like that, and there are several versions of why. Some say that it was based on poor dental hygiene, while others believe it was related to the time it took for one shot—smiling for 20 minutes straight can be quite a challenge.