Sometimes, I am guilty of not maximizing the use of my DSLR because I am lazy to carry it. I’m still very much attached to the point and shoot since it’s much more convenient to bring it around. But nothing beats a DSLR when it comes to low light conditions and shutter speed that’s why I’m still hanging on to it …until I probably admit to myself that it I’ll never overcome my laziness. Haha…
Anyway, after reading a few pages of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography by Richard I'Anson, I realized that I don’t have the right to complain about carrying a DSLR when traveling. In fact, at this day and age, we’re extremely lucky.
Did you know that the first travel photo which was taken around 1826 in France by a guy named Joseph Nicephore Niepce required an eight-hour exposure?! Yep, 8 hours and considering it was taken at daylight!
Then around 1839, a guy named Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre introduced what is now known as daguerreotype. It allowed people to travel with cameras and produce photos except that you had to carry a portable darkroom tent and containers of chemicals! (And here I am refusing to buy a tripod because I don’t want to carry anything on top of a basic camera!)
In 1851, a guy named Frederick Scott Archer invented the wet collodion plate. The process reduced exposure time to 2 seconds and allowed reproduction of photos but this time, photographers didn’t just have to bring a portable tent and chemicals, but also glass plates, plateholders, tanks and water containers!
By 1860, a lot of the popular travel spots like the Great Wall, Nile and Grand Canyon were taken in great detail using the wet collodion plate. The photos created public interest and as tourism increased, the demand for photos as souvenirs emerged. Postcards which were previously hand-drawn were eventually replaced by photographs. (How big was the photographic postcard market? The world's mail systems processed 7 billion postcards in 1910.)
In 1888, George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, invented a camera using a roll of film. The first ever Kodak camera came with a memo book so you can track the count of the photos you’ve taken. And the rest is just history.
In 2009, The Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Photography cites that over 500 billion digital photos would have been taken! Whoa… Photography has indeed gone a long way.
So no more complaining about lugging around some heavy DSLR. I’m just so glad we don’t have to carry tents and chemicals these days. But if that were the case, I would just probably be one of those buying postcards. Haha…
