Let's celebrate George Eastman tonight in the music club. He was born on this day, June 12th, in 1854.
At 24, George planned to visit Santo Domingo. He wanted to document the trip in photos found the equipment at the time cumbersome and expensive. He never took the trip. Instead, he began researching how to make photography easier to travel with and how to get it in the hands of the average person.
George launched his photography company in April 1880. In 1885, he got his a roll-holder device that he and camera inventor William Hall Walker had come up with. The invention set a path for cameras to be smaller and more affordable.
In 1900, Eastman's company, Kodak, introduced the Brownie camera to the public. His target audience was new hobbyist photographers. With a selling price of $1, it became a huge success, introducing people and especially children to the art of photography, building a consumer base that would last for years to come.
Eastman was also one of the first businessmen to embrace and implement the concept of employee profit sharing in the United States. In 1919, he also added what is known now as stock options to his workers.
As he grew older, Eastman started suffering degenerative condition in the lower spinal cord. As an avid cyclist and proponent of physical fitness, he did not like the idea of being immobilized. On March 14, 1932, at age 77, he took his own life with a single gunshot to the heart. The note he left behind said "My work is done. Why wait?"
George Eastman held and purchased many patents in his life relating to photography. The company he founded, Kodak, and its engineers were issued 19,576 US patents between 1900 and 1999.
That's enough photographic history for this evening (also, yours truly is a bit of film photography user so thanks for letting me go on about George tonight.) Here's Mission Of Burma stating that something is not a picture captured.
What are you listening to tonight?
