When George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, introduced the Kodak #1 camera in 1888, photography became vastly more convenient. With a sale price of $25 (roughly $700 today), the camera was preloaded with a 100-frame roll of film. Once finished, the film and camera would be sent back to Kodak for developing. As one Kodak ad from 1889 put it, “Anybody can take photographs with the Kodak.”The link goes to an interesting New York Times piece that compares a photo essay they ran back in 1951, featuring candids of people out shooting photographs on the streets of the Big Apple, with a photo of people doing the same today. While the folding cameras and 35mm rangefinders have been replaced by DSLRs and smartphones, the similarities are as striking as the differences.
.
