historical

Who Invented the Selfie? Not Paris Hilton

The word "selfie" exploded into the mainstream over the past 5 years, but self-portraits have obviously been around much, much longer. Sarah Burton of BuzzFeed recently set out to discover the origins of the selfie. In this 7-minute video, take a trip through the history back to the birth of the selfie.

The 19-Year-Old Who Shot Spy Camera Street Photos in the 1890s

Carl Størmer was a Norwegian mathematician and physicist who's best known for number theory and studying auroras. Aside from his intellectual pursuits, Størmer was also an avid street photographer. When he was a 19-year-old college student, he used a hidden spy camera to shoot street photos in Norway in the 1890s.

The Forgotten Photographer of Soviet Uzbekistan

As Central Asia was transformed under Soviet rule, one man made a remarkable record of life in the fledgling Uzbek S.S.R. before being driven from his career and toward tragedy.

Footage of SF’s Market Street Before and After the 1906 Earthquake

On April 18, 1906, San Francisco was struck by a magnitude 7.8 earthquake that sparked huge fires, destroying over 80% of the city and killing roughly 3,000 people. Immediately before and after the earthquake, cameras captured dashcam-style footage while traveling down Market Street, and those films now provide an idea of how SF was changed through the quake.

This Oldest Surviving Photo of a U.S. President May Sell for $250,000+

Back in March 1843, the sixth US president (serving from 1825–1829), John Quincy Adams, sat for a portrait photo in a Washington studio. Fast forward to the modern day, and the photo is now the oldest surviving photo of a U.S. president. It's going to auction and carries an estimate of $150,000 to $250,000.

Gerda Taro: The Woman Who Invented Robert Capa

Gerta Pohorylle was born in 1910 in the German state of Stuttgart to a middle-class Jewish Galician family. She attended a Swiss boarding school, where she learned English and French and grew up receiving a secular education. In spite of her bourgeois origins, she became part of socialist and labor movements while still very young.

A Forgotten Solution to the Problems of Zoom Lenses

For a few years now, I’ve had in my collection one very strange lens. I bought it primarily for its value as a collectible so, up until now, I haven’t really spent much time playing with it. Made in 1975, this manual focus Minolta MC Rokkor-X 40-80mm f/2.8 lens is one strange puppy.

Rare Color Photos from World War II

Due to costs and scarcity, the vast majority of photos captured during World War II were shot on black-and-white film. Some images were captured in color, however, and those rare shots reveal what scenes from the Second World War looked like to people in them.

The Evolution of Canon EOS Cameras Over the Past 30 Years

The Canon EOS (Electro-Optical System) ecosystem was born 30 years ago with the introduction of the Canon EOS 650 35mm SLR on March 2nd, 1987. Since then, over 70 EOS cameras have been launched. Here's a 1.5-minute video by Digital Camera Warehouse that shows the evolution of EOS cameras over three decades.

Rare Footage of Animals That Have Gone Extinct

It is estimated that over 99% of all species that have lived on Earth have gone extinct, and a number of notable ones have disappeared just over the past century. Thanks to the existence of cameras, however, we have a more accurate visual record of what some recently extinct animals looked like.

A Rare 1967 TV Interview with Victor Hasselblad

Back in 1967, Swedish National Television was granted a rare interview with Hasselblad founder Victor Hasselblad at his sea-side home in Sweden. In the 30-minute segment above, Hasselblad talks about everything from designing his first camera to dealing with copycats in Japan.

Video: How Automatic Film Processing Labs Work

Back in the heyday of film photography, a common part of the photography experience was dropping off your film rolls at a store or lab, placing the roll in an envelope and checking boxes with instructions for what you'd like. Here's a fascinating 5-minute video that reveals what happened to your film between drop off and delivery of your prints and processed film.

Jackie Kennedy’s Old Camera Gear Up for Sale on eBay

Before marrying President John F. Kennedy and becoming the First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline "Jackie" Kennedy once earned $42.50 per week as the "inquiring camera girl" for the Washington Times-Herald. Some of her personally used camera gear is now for sale on eBay.

World’s Oldest Working Photo Studio Shuts Down After Long Legal Battle

Today, a week after an exhibition titled ‘Bourne and Shepherd: Figures in Time’ came to a close in the plush locality of south Delhi, India, Bourne and Shepherd, Asia’s first and the world’s longest functioning photography studio, is closing up shop in Kolkata after 176 years.

The World’s First ‘Fully’ Digital Camera was Created by Fuji

Ask a photo nerd and they'll tell you that the world's first digital camera was invented in the 70s by Steve Sasson while working at Kodak (oh, the irony). But did you know that it's Fuji, not Kodak, who claims they invented the world's first "fully" or "truly" digital camera? It's true.

I Found 100-Year-Old Glass Plates in an Abandoned Japanese Home

Abandoned places are an alluring subject matter for many photographers. Japan is a treasure trove of abandoned places, or "haikyo", due to a perfect storm of an ageing population, a burst economic bubble in the 80s, and land tax loop holes.

Casual Photographers Were ‘Stealing’ Work from Pros Back in 1887

Professional photographers sometimes gripe about how casual shooters undercut their businesses by offering (often) lesser quality work for pennies on the dollar. But it's not something that was brought on by cheap and accessible digital cameras -- this "problem" has been around from the early days of photography.

San Francisco in the Great Depression: Photos by Dorothea Lange

In 1918, photographer Dorothea Lange left New York on a trip to travel the world. That ambitious trip was cut short by a robbery, and Lange ended up settling in the San Francisco Bay Area and opening a studio there. During the Great Depression, Langue took her camera out of the studio and onto the streets to document the country for the Farm Security Administration.