A Snapshot History of America Response

This passage written by Michael Williams and friends was definitely an interesting one. I think their might have been a typo on one of the pages that said the Kodak camera was first available in 1988. I think it may have been 1888. But I’m not sure about that. I liked how there was a history of the snapshot and where that term came from. I also thought that the breakdown of where American film came from and an explanation of how cameras become easier to use and more accessible to the American public.

                One of the parts of this passage I enjoyed the most was the portion quoting Dorothy Fields about the meaningfulness of the snapshot. I liked it because she about the simplicity of her mother using a Kodak camera to take family pictures and how cameras now are too complicated. I can relate to this because I don’t take a lot of pictures. I have a camera but there are so many settings on the camera to adjust the lighting or lens or flash or plenty of other things about photography that I don’t even understand. I feel like I would have fit in better in the world of photography when the Kodak camera was the preferred method of recording memories and nobody had digital cameras. It just seems like a simpler time where you take out your Kodak and click once. After that one click, then you have a picture. No need to worry about focusing or turning the flash on.

                One other reason I like the idea of using the Kodak compared to digital cameras is because of the surprises that you could always receive after taking pictures on a Kodak. With a digital camera you can take a thousand pictures and immediately know what all of them look like and simply delete them on your camera if you don’t like them. However, with the Kodak, the camera has to be sent somewhere else to get the film developed. This, I think, is cool because you have no idea what your pictures are going to look like before they come back in an envelope. Whether they were good pictures or not, you’re stuck with them being developed. I think this is a feature of photography that I will miss as technology grows because it gives you more appreciation for taking good pictures when you come across the perfect picture from your developed film that you don’t even remember taking. It can make the memories more lasting and even more meaningful. And the bad pictures can be fun to laugh at.

                Even as technology continues to grow, the average Americans will definitely continue to be the backbone of the photography world. The amateur photographers are the ones taking pictures with their friends that create lasting memories that will be passed down to their children and on. I think this is a cool thought and was something I enjoyed reading about in this chapter.