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Santa Pictures + Marketing for your BusinessEastman, Kodak, and Roll Film: A history of revolution and evolution in photography
I love looking at the history of photography. I think it helps keep things in perspective.
Somewhere in the mid-1870s almost everyone had had some sort of exposure to photography. Certainly everyone in modern society had been photographed or, at the very least, had seen photographs. Many had even thought of taking up photography as a craft. There were, of course, limitations. The technical skill and large quantity of equipment needed for the collodion wet-plate process kept early hobbyists at bay, much like the price and technical skill of digital photography did only a handful of years ago.
Revolution and evolution tend to change things.
Enter a man named George Eastman. Sound familiar? Eastman gets most of the credit for popularizing photography. He started out the same as every other photographer back in 1877 using the wet-plate process.
“It seemed,” he said, “that one ought to be able to carry less than a pack-horse load,”
While many people before him had experimented with roll film it was his ingenuity that brought forth the equipment to manufacture film on a mass basis. Result? Eastman’s American Film which was a roll of paper coated with a thin gelatin emulsion that, when stripped from the opaque paper backing, would provide a negative that light could shine through for making prints. Because many photographers had trouble with this method the film was usually sent back to Eastman’s company for processing.
At first there wasn’t much attention paid to this new process aside from rumblings amongst photographers. You still needed expensive and heavy view cameras for taking pictures.
In 1888 Eastman introduced the Kodak camera. It was inexpensive, light, and simple to operate. The Kodak came loaded with 100 exposures and when you used it up you sent it back to Eastman’s company for processing. The developed and printed photographs were returned to the owner along with the original camera loaded with another 100 exposures.
The roll-film Kodak became an international sensation almost overnight.
Hannibal Goodwin soon invented a truly modern foll film (transparent, flexible plastic, sturdy, and without a paper support) and a new photographic era begun.
George Eastman and The Eastman Kodak Company were able to see, very early on, who their main users would be and they directed their advertising accordingly.
“A collection of these pictures may be made to furnish a pictorial history of life as it is lived by the owner, that will grow more valuable every day that passes.”
Comments
Great article Damien, really interesting! You should do a whole seies of these about the history of photography.
Thanks again, Rob.
Yeah, there are a few of them already. I just like to pepper the regular content with history of photography. Keep everyone on their toes!
I hadn't realised that it was Hannibal Goodwin that invented modern film.
Part of the reasons why this was so well established was the catchy slogan and price. The slogan “You push the button, we do the rest.†clearly stated what this was about: simple Photography for everyone.
The "cameras" were also quite cheap, even for the time. For $1 you could buy a camera that was already loaded with film (I believe it's the one in the image in the article), which included developments of all prints from Kodak, including shipment to Kodak and back to you.
The word Kodak, by the way, means absoloutely nothing. Eastman just made it up because he though the "K"-sound made it sound strong.
Brilliant marketing, if you ask me.
Dear Damien Franco,
I'm writing (belatedly) to thank you for your 1/25/10 post on the history of Kodak camera. I'm working on a book about a woman named Sara Bard Field, a Baptist minister's wife who later became a poet, a nationally famous suffragist, and what was then known as an "anarchist and free-lover."
Before she did all that, she grew up in Detroit in the 1880s and 1890s. I have a family snapshot that was apparently taken by her father in 1895, and I liked your post because I've been trying to find any interesting nuggets I can about what snapshot-taking was like in those days--for instance, whether the photographer would have seen the image upside down when he looked into the lens, as I understand one did in very early photography; how long those photographed had to hold the pose (I know it was a long time at the beginning, but maybe it was shorter by 1895); how comparatively expensive a Kodak camera was then, etc.
Do you know of any websites that have such information? I'd be very grateful for any place you can point me to. Thanks so much for any information you might have!
Best regards,
Dona Munker
http://www.storydriven.net
interesting topic. thank you for sharing
I think you're spot on. Eastman, aside from being an inventor, and innovator, seemed to be quite the marketer as well.
Interesting story of how film cameras came to be. These days we think back at how technology has changed from our childhoods to present day. While the technology of the 80s was lacking, I couldn't imagine growing up in the 1870s when photography was just becoming popular.
thank you very much
Wow, I had no idea photography went back that far. Some of the pictures/portraits from the 1800s seem to look like artwork almost. I just wonder what's next in the evolution of photography? Holograph photography? That would certainly be something.
Till then,
Jean
I hope that this year will be momentous one in the history of photography.
Photographic film is doomed to extinction, but many a purist will tell you that they prefer a darkroom over photoshop any day. Convincing the new generation ain'y goinna happen though. Digital photography rules!
Thanks for share history of photography. Interesting post.
Nice Articles Damien and i will recommend this blog to my friend he is the professional photographer.
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