A Picture Is Worth 1,000 Words: The Changing Cost of Photography

Growing up in the 1980’s and 90’s, I respected the importance of capturing time in a photograph. Moving from frame to frame, my life replays in my mind the changes as the days fade. Now photography is bigger and better due to this simple fact: photography is financially cheaper to produce and publish. 

"Picture in picture in picture" by kevin dooley is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

A picture is worth a thousand words as long as that picture exists. 

Photographers can take 15-20 photographs to get the best one. A few decades ago photographs would be hit or miss for the best shot. Memories are made with more exposure to life in pictures.  Pictures I would have captured forever lay at waste due to the financial cost a photograph required before digital photography.  

Sport features, landscaping, store ads, photography as a whole was more expensive and people took fewer photographs to capture time. The less expensive digital photography makes more photographs with more photographers to capture life events. These life events adhere to history as a form of digital media, making life a more shared definition.  

Photographers can now send pictures to other people and sources without printing or shipping them via mail. Emails and files ease the process of photography, leaving the consumer to choose what pictures to print or publish. This makes photography even more accessible towards the pursuers of this art. 

Photography has evolved, and it remains cheaper. It is also more available to more people.  More accessible, easier to submit and receive, photography is on the move in our lives.  Photography is now available to me as a life goal because it is now financially viable. There remains one fact in photography: more, more, more.