water. The cardboard box could be printed with
custom designs and promotional messages or sim-
ply decorated for particular occasions. By 1996, a
decade after their introduction, single use cameras
were selling at a rate of 80 million annually in Ja-
pan alone.
It was not until the very end of the twentieth
century that the cost of digital photography was
lowered to the point where it became affordable
for most families. However, the development of
electronic family photography had begun much ear-
lier in the form of home video. Sony’s 1965 por-
table, black and white video camera wired to a
separate reel-to-reel half-inch video recorder was a
relatively crude and expensive downscaling of pro-
fessional television cameras and video recorders. By
the early 1980s, it had been replaced by color cam-
corders making use of half inch and, in the 1990s, 8
mm video cassettes. A third generation of home
video, in the form of the digital video camcorder,
was introduced by Sony in 1982. By the mid-1990s,
digital video camcorders, often no larger than con-
ventional still cameras, could be fed into home
computers, their footage edited by increasingly
sophisticated software. The potential of this domes-
tic version of television-computer convergence, as
well as the continually decreasing price of both
analogue and digital home video made it, by cen-
tury’s end, the most widely used domestic alterna-
tive to silver-based photography.
Digital still photography, as a mass marketed
consumer format, was introduced in tandem with
the digital video cameras. While digital imaging on
computers was first demonstrated in 1979 and mar-
keted by Sony in 1982, the cameras were prohibi-
tively expensive for home use. It was not until 1994
and 1995, respectively, that Kodak and Casio
broke the US$1,000 price barrier. The following
year, 20 other models of relatively low-cost digital
cameras were introduced by Japanese electronics
companies and one million units were sold. By
decade’s end, sales of digital cameras had increased
to approximately four million per year with prices
of some models falling well below $500.
Digital tools also contributed to changes in che-
mical-based family photography. After 1990, com-
mercial photo developers could return digital prints
of conventional film on Kodak’s photo CD, a
device that also allowed for in-store and home
computer editing of those prints. In 1996, Kodak,
with more than 40% of the world photography
market, and Fuji, with an additional third of it,
together introduced their Advanced Photography
System. This hybrid technology was based on
magnetically striped cartridge film imprinted by
the camera with information used subsequently
to set the parameters of digital developers and edit-
ing equipment.
At the end of the twentieth century, it remained
to be seen whether Kodak and Fuji succeeded in
creating anything more than a transitional technol-
ogy. The exponential growth in home computers,
computer speed, and computer memory as well as
the increased accessibility of peripherals associated
with digital photography (photo editing software,
ink jet printers, scanners) offered the family photo-
grapher more options for less cost. Digital images
could be produced by scanning conventional images
or shot directly with digital cameras. Home dark-
rooms, while greatly facilitated throughout the cen-
tury by downscaled commercial equipment, and
improvements in pre-mixed chemicals and prepared
papers,couldnotmatchtheoptionsavailableineven
the basic photography software distributed with
printers and scanners. More advanced software,
most notably Adobe Photoshop, offered profes-
sional photo finishing on home computers. Finished
photographs could be viewed on screen or printed as
hard copy on a variety of photo papers. Digital
imagescouldbestoredinpassword-protectedvirtual
albums,transmittedtoanynumberofrecipientsany-
where in the world via e-mail or mounted for univer-
sal viewing on the World Wide Web.Practice
From their first advertising campaigns, Kodak and
its competitors went to some length to demonstrate
that point-and-shoot cameras could be used by any-
one, including women and children. The Kodak
‘‘girl’’ in her striped Edwardian dress was intro-
duced in 1910 to become a mainstay of the com-
pany’s promotional material until 1940. In North
America and Europe, Kodak sponsored photogra-
phy clubs in schools and youth organizations while
publishing photo manuals and other camera litera-
ture aimed at children. In 1930, the company went
so far as to give away a half million Brownies world-
wide to children turning twelve that year.
One result of the proliferation of family photo-
graphy was common loathing of the ubiquitous
‘‘camera fiend.’’ By 1900, the dignified act of sitting
for a photographic portrait in the privacy of a
studio became far less common than daily encoun-
ters with ordinary people photographing each other
in public. Bill Jay points out that the aggression
associated with photojournalists was first reported
with shock and dismay as early as the 1890s in
relation to family photographers. In what Henisch
and Henisch refer to as ‘‘the trivialization of tra-FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHY