Greetings!,

Do you remember phone books? How about rolodexes, Radio Shack, Blockbuster videos, Pontiac and Mercury cars, or VHS tapes?

These are all things from the past that have become obsolete or out of business. We all know that the world changes and technology continues to advance.

The most recent victim of social change and technology looks to be Kodak. The company that pioneered film, picture taking, and the instant camera once controlled over 80% of the film market. However, in some ways Kodak was a victim of its own success. While they invented the instant camera in in 1975, according to Fox Business, the company was afraid to embrace the technology for fear of hurting it's film business.

Kodak announced in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing last Monday that there was "substantial doubt" about the company's ability to stay in business. 

As I'm sure you can guess, cell phones are the dominant technology concerning pictures. While professional photography and cinematography may use film, our everyday world of selfies and other pictures are digital.

With the proliferation of cell phones and the low cost/no cost to take pictures, our capturing of images has exploded. According to Lightstalking.com, here are some mind-blowing numbers:

• The total Number of Photos…More photos were taken in the last two years than in the entire history of photography before that.
• 
  
• The Impact of Smartphone Photography…As of 2021, it's estimated that there are more than 3.8 billion active smartphone users worldwide, and most use their phones to take photos.
• 
  
• Selfie Mania…According to a survey, people take more photos of themselves than they do of their friends or family.
• 
  
• No really…Selfies make up a significant portion of all photos taken, with an estimated 93 million selfies taken every day.
• 
  
• Women vs Men…Women take more photos than men.
• 
  
• The Most Popular Camera for photographers is…The most popular camera used on Flickr is the iPhone.
• 
  
• Where we share photos…Facebook is the world's largest photo-sharing platform, with over 350 million photos uploaded daily.
• 
  
• About Instagram…Over 95 million photos and videos are uploaded to Instagram every day.
• 
  
• About The Future…By 2030, around 2.3 trillion photos will be taken annually.

So as time marches on, it may be fun to speculate what company or what current technology may quicky fade away.

As always, thank you for reading.

Bernie & Chad