Kodak….. a good idea at the time
In 1888 George Eastman launched Kodak with the motto “You push the button, we do the rest”.
Although photography had been around for a while, it was, until Eastman, an expensive and complicated affair; the domain of professionals – with a strong propensity toward chemistry.
The plethora of new, small and cheap cameras annoyed professional photographers no end.
Alfred Steiglitz, writing in The American Annual of Photography in 1897:
“It was, undoubtedly, due to the hand camera that photography became so generally popular a few years ago. Every Tom, Dick and Harry could, without trouble, learn how to get something or other on a sensitive plate, and this is what the public wanted — no work and lots of fun. Thanks to the efforts of these persons hand camera and bad work became synonymous.
What Youtube has done to the public perception of ‘home video’, Steiglitz believed Kodak would do to his beloved photography.
What happened in the end was actually quite different.
Steiglitz in fact embraced the small, inexpensive and non-professional cameras, writing
“But in the past year or two all this has been changed. There are many who claim that for just the most serious work the hand camera is not only excellently adapted, but that without it the pictorial photographer is sadly handicapped.â€
Of course, with the coming of Kodak, home photography went on to bury professional photography as the very foundation of the worldwide photography business.
It turned out that people loved the idea of taking snapshots of their friends, their vacations, the major events in their lives.
When I was a kid, like everyone else, I had a Brownie followed by an Instamatic.
Now we’re taking a serious look at the home video business.
Almost everyone takes a video camera with them when they go on a trip or attend an important family event.
Almost everyone squeezes off some video at the Eiffel Tower, the brother-in-law’s wedding or on Christmas Morning.
But…. and here’s the important part – the vast majority of the video that they shoot is hardly ever seen by anyone. Even the person who makes the video often does not take the time to look at it.
The reason?
Almost universally people say ‘it’s boring’.
It’s also endless.
What is lacking is the editing – and then, what to do with it.
Of course, editing software is all over the place, but most ‘regular’ people find it far too intimidating. It’s amazing how those of us immersed in the technological world can lose track of how few people understand what can be done – and how easy it is to do it.
On the ship we are not only training people how to shoot and cut, but many of them are simply amazed that you can upload all this to Youtube and then send all your friends and family a link so they can see the video right away.
Sound obvious – but only to us.
To these folks, it’s a kind of miraculous revelation.
Now, they can share their videos immediately. Edited videos. With music. And graphics. And them! as host.
Pretty good.
And so easy to do.
Like George Eastman said, ‘you push the button. We do the rest’.
