World Photography Day 2026
Image Credit: Sebastian Pichler
What Is World Photography Day?
World Photography Day is a worldwide celebration of Photography held on 19th August each year.
It celebrates all facets of photography, as an art, a science, a historical record and a way of documenting our world.
In 2027, the photographic community will be celebrating 200 years of photography. In 1827 the very first photographic image was created by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce. His work was continued after his death by Louis Daguerre who successfully experimented with silver halides on a copper plate, creating what he called the Daguerreotype.
Many other inventors were working on using the technique on paper, and improving the light-fastness of the images created.
These original images were general one-off pictures, but the invention in 1884 of photographic paper roll and later celluloid film by George Eastman of the Kodak company, made photography accessible to everyday (albeit wealthy) people.
The mass production of film cameras made photography truely accessible in the 1950s while the 1990s saw the widespread adoption of digital photography once more making photography cheaper and easier. Today everyone with a smartphone in their pocket has a good quality camera on them at all times, and the internet allows us to share our pictures in an unprecedented way.
If you want to celebrate World Photography Day, here are some things to do.
- Take a photograph of course. You probably have a camera on your phone, and it is easier than any time in history to take a good photograph.
- Use a standalone camera for your pictures. Old digital cameras can be found quite cheaply secondhand and the images produced have a completely different quality to those produced by your phone.
- Why not have a go at taking a photograph using film? If you don't want to buy a camera you can buy a single use disposible 35mm single use film camera. Or try your local charity shop, antique shop or eBay for an old film camera to try out.
- Go to a photography exhibition or visit a camera museum.
- Read up about the great photgraphers.
World Photography Day Printables
Here are some printables for World Photography Day. Like the original photographs, they're are all in black and white.
There is an easy wordsearch for younger ones and a harder puzzle for people who want more of a challenge.
World Photography Day Printable Puzzle
A wordsearch with lots of Photography-related words to get your brain working on World Photography Day.