A Fascinating Short History of the Kodak Snapshot

Vox has put out one of their typically slick videos looking at how Kodak coined the term “snapshot”.

Photography aficionados will likely be well-versed in the history of the Eastman Kodak company — a photographic company founded in the 1800s that is still going strong to this day. However, the Vox video published on September 20 is still worth a look.

In it, the video explains how photography was initially a complex, scientific process exclusively carried out by studio technicians. That was until the Kodak No.1.

“It was a handheld box camera pre-loaded with a relatively new, lightweight invention: Roll film,” explains lead video producer Coleman Lowndes.

The Kodak No.1 was capable of shooting 100 small circular photos. Once the film roll was finished, the customer sent the camera to Kodak for development and waited for the unit to come back in the post with a fresh roll installed and with their photographs from the last one.

While these snapshots weren’t as good quality as studio photographers, it marked the first time lay people could produce photos leading to the famous slogan: “You press the button, we do the rest.”

“The casual nature of these photos, made possible by how quickly the Kodak No.1 could take pictures, showed natural smiles and people at ease,” says Lowndes. “In comparison to the portraits done in professional studios up to this point which often had longer exposure times and a more formal setting.”

According to Vox, a Kodak No.1 cost $25 in the 1890s which is the equivalent of over $800 today — putting it out the price range for most people. But that changed when Kodak brought out the follow-up: The Kodak Brownie.

The Brownie, released circa 1900, only cost $1 (equivalent to $38 today). Unlike the Kodak No.1, the photographer had to load their own film cannister (which cost 15 cents each) with each cartridge holding six exposures. The Brownie took off and by the end of 1905, it had sold over 1.2 million cameras.

The video ends by documenting Kodak’s demise which culminated in them filing for bankruptcy in 2012 amid a camera market that had fully turned digital. But like a phoenix, Kodak has risen again as analog photography began to reemerge as a passion hobby in the 2020s.