Sharing Some History
Photographic images have always been about sharing. In the 19th century, the most popular kind of photograph was the portrait, in part because it was much cheaper than getting your painting made (photography has also always been about being as inexpensive and available as possible, but that's another blog), and largely because it was a great way to preserve and share the memory of your loved ones. People were so enthralled with the resemblance that photographers were even called on often to make photographs of the recently deceased so that their family members could have a way to remember them.
One extremely popular, and really cool, use of early photographic portraiture was the Carte de Visite. This nifty little photo card was patented by French photographer André Adolphe Eugène Disdéri in 1854. Just like Pictoids these cards were small and portable, about the size of a calling card, or visiting card, and just like Pictoids these cards were made to be shared! They became so insanely popular to make and share with friends and family (they were conveniently small enough to easily mail to loved ones), that "cardomania" eventually spread across the world. People collected and traded cards of friends and family, and photographers even began making money selling things like cards of famous people, and special albums to protect and display them in!
Unfortunately as technology evolved, this novel way of sharing images eventually got lost- but at Zerography we think that technology has come full circle on the practice and format. The time is ripe to revive this process of creating, collecting, and sharing real prints of our photos once more, and in the tradition of the printed image, we think it should be available to everyone, as cheaply as possible. In this case: Free.
Make way for Pictoids.
