wacky wednesday - full circle?

I was reading an article the other day that said that dSLR camera sales have dropped sharply in the past two to three years and that in the near future (less than ten years) they predict that only professional photographers will be purchasing dSLR cameras.

I am not a professional by any stretch of the imagination but I do like my dSLR and prefer it over every other camera I own.

And what, you ask, is replacing dSLR cameras in the hands of the masses?

Yep, it's a smartphone!

In 1837, Louis Daguerre created the first practical photographic process (which he named daguerrotype) using copper sheets. The camera he used was actually conceptualized by Johann Zahn 150 years before but wasn't brought to fruition until Daguerre invented the process for making the image. For the first time, actual images could be stored on a material and preserved for decades. Photography was born! And with it, professional photographers who were the only ones who had access to such pricey cameras.

Over the next hundred years or so, the world of photography saw many advances. George Eastman invented photographic film and with his first camera ("Kodak"), a simple box camera, photographs were more widely available. The 1950's brought the "Instant" cameras. Remember the Polaroid Land Camera? Gone were the days of waiting a few weeks for your film to be processed. In just a few minutes your photo magically appeared. Unfortunately, they also drastically faded over time. By the  1990's, digital cameras were on the scene with dSLR's right behind them. What would be next?

Since the first camera phone came out in 2000, their popularity has grown every year. By 2006, half of the world's mobile phones had cameras. Every few months newer technology gives us higher resolution and sharper images faster. App developers work overtime to provide us with photo editing and enhancing options making our photos look like works of art. 

There are several reasons folks are trading their dSLR cameras for camera phones. First, images can instantly be shared on social media sites. Camera phones are compact and fit in your pocket weighing next to nothing. You can take them everywhere. Lugging a bulky camera bag - or even just an average size dSLR camera - can be heavy and cumbersome. People don't go anywhere without their camera phone so they have them for those unexpected, candid photo ops.

By the end of the article, I had concluded we have come full circle in photography. Photography began with professional photographers having "real" cameras and will apparently soon return to professional photographers being the ones with "real" cameras.

And a new genre is born... phonography.