Celebrating World Photography Day aug 19
On this day in 1839, photography was shared with the world. Everything below came after.
National Science and Media Museum · the 19 August 1839 public announcement of Louis Daguerre’s photographic process
The scale
That is roughly 1.95 trillion photographs this year. Yours are somewhere in that number, and so is everyone you love.
Rise Above Research, 2026 Worldwide Image Capture Forecast · published February 2026
every one of these was somebody’s whole day
The turn
Your phone made the taking free. Keeping them is the part nobody solved, and most of us find that out on the worst possible day.
photos sit on the average smartphone, and it keeps climbing every year.
of smartphone owners have photos on their phone they have not looked at since the day they took them.
Mixbook commissioned survey · n=1,967 US smartphone owners, fielded May 2 to 8, 2023
of people in Britain have already lost photographs that were stored on a smartphone.
Kodak Alaris, via Redshift Research · n=2,000 UK adults, fielded August 2015
What we actually value
Asked to choose between the phone and what is on it, most people pick the pictures. A separate survey found 78% say looking back at old photographs makes them happier and calmer. We know exactly what these are worth to us. We just rarely act like it.
Acronis, with Google · n=818 respondents
Fujifilm “Frame of Mind”, conducted by MarketVision Research · n=2,014 US adults, fielded Nov 25 to Dec 4, 2024, published Mar 19, 2025
Not a full phone. Not a folder you will get around to sorting. Somewhere that keeps them, finds the one you are thinking of, and hands it back on the day you want it.
A moment happens once. The photo keeps it forever.
Capsyl is a personal cloud built to keep the photos you would hate to lose.
Back up your digital life