Zenfolio celebrates World Photography Day with a video series gift.
August 18th, 2023
For those of us who spend our lives and make our livelihoods behind the camera, we can sometimes lose our appreciation for this creative tool and the technological advances of photography since its inception. World Photography Day is a worldwide celebration of the art, craft, science, and history of photography, observed on August 19th each year. As an extension of our commitment to help photographers succeed, Zenfolio is sharing a video series to help photographers expand their expertise.
Since photography was invented just over 200 years ago with the camera obscura process, the science and technology have continually evolved. As the equipment has continually advanced, the creative, documentary, and scientific applications of this art continue to captivate.
Whether you are new to the photography community, re-exploring an old passion, or just in need of a refresher, we welcome photographers to continue learning and enhancing their craft this World Photography Day. Beginning Saturday, August 19th 2023, photographers will have free 30-day access to the Zenfolio video series, “Mastering Manual Camera Settings.”
Since 2005, Zenfolio has helped photographers and videographers at every career level around the world as a leading photography business solution. From building a portfolio website, to shareable client galleries, to e-commerce solutions and time-saving workflow tools, Zenfolio is focused on simplifying the many aspects of running a successful photography business so photographers can have more time doing what they love.
What makes World Photography Day significant?
Since 1991, the 19th day of August every year is set to recognize the invention of the Daguerreotype, the process that eventually evolved into commercially viable modern-day photography. Although photography was invented in 1822 by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, his heliography process took hours to process an image on pewter plates. It was Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre who later developed a unique, and easier to reproduce, process that recorded a positive image on a copper plate. The Daguerreotype process was made accessible to the world on the 19th day of August in 1839, gifted by the French Academy of Sciences.
Esteemed Indian photographer OP Sharma understood the significance of the date and set about making it an occasion for celebration by photographers. Sharma explained his motivation in an interview with Harmony – Celebrate Age magazine.
“The idea came to me in 1988 when, over and over again, in various publications that documented the history of photography, I came across this date,” Sharma stated. “It was recorded as the date on which the then French government announced the invention of the Daguerreotype process of photography as a ‘free gift to the world’. I proposed the idea to several masters and photographers around the world, about 150 of them, including the RPS and the Photographic Society of America (PSA)…by the beginning of 1991, everyone took a unanimous decision and we started celebrating World Photography Day that year.”
How Zenfolio celebrates photographers.
Every day, Zenfolio honors the creativity and perseverance of the global community of photographers and supports their work, often with the direct assistance of our amazing Customer Support team. We view World Photography Day as a date to step up and do a little more. In recent years, here are a few ways Zenfolio has appreciated photographers on our special day…
Glimmers of Hope
In the midst of pandemic lockdowns, Zenfolio took a look around the world to find photographers and images who gave us different perspectives, views we hadn’t seen, and reasons to hope. From rarely seen clear skies in New Delhi, India, to record numbers of Leatherback turtles spawning on abandoned beaches in Thailand, to wild boars boldly venturing into the empty streets of Haifa Israel, this showcase gave us all reason to smile.
$1,000,000 Free Student Subscriptions
To support the future of photography, Zenfolio gave away one million dollars of free Portfolio plan subscriptions to students on World Photography Day 2021. The gifts empowered students with cutting-edge technology and resources that not only made organizing and sharing their student projects simpler, but helped them take their photography to the next level, see what the right tools can do for a working photographer, and get a boost to start their career.
The Impact of Female Photojournalists
Last year on World Photography Day, Zenfolio brought well-deserved attention to a handful of talented female photojournalists who had been recognized for their impactful work. World Press Photo of the Year winner Amber Bracken was awarded for shining a light on the issues affecting North American Indigenous people with her piece “Kamloops Residential School.” Isadora Romero of Ecuador was recognized for her storytelling with “Blood is a Seed,” and Paula Bronstein received the Courage in Photojournalism award for her impactful body of work in war zones.
Zenfolio video series free access.
As the market-leading single solution for photographers to run and grow their business, Zenfolio is offering a valuable resource for improving their craft on World Photography Day. The four part video series Mastering Manual Camera Settings covers:
- Focus
- ISO
- Shutter speed
- White Balance
Beginning on World Photography Day, Saturday, August 19, 2023, photographers will have access to view and learn from the video series for 30 days at no charge.
Making the most of World Photography Day.
Unlike other special days that encourage honorees to sleep in, cook out, or party hard, August 19th is not that kind of holiday for photographers. The official World Photography Day website encourages photographers to get out there, take your best shots, and share them in celebration of the day.
It’s easy these days to take technology for granted with a supercomputer in your hand to help run your life, communicate, and record photos and video. Thinking back to those early pioneers who invented the technology to record images on metal plates and gifted that science to the world, we can thank them for two centuries of images that a thousand words cannot begin to describe.
WorldPhotographyDay.com is currently accepting submissions for photos to be featured on World Photography Daily. Get out there and take some photos, submit them, and hone your craft with the Zenfolio Mastering Manual Camera Settings video series.
