The Carte-de-Visite Photography and Modern Social Media

The Carte-de-Visite and Social Media
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The Carte-de-Visite and Social Media
The world we a living in today has become one community due to different technological advancements. The world's highest population has access to or owns a smartphone or a phone that has access to the internet. This has made it possible for people worldwide to own at least one social media account, whether it is Facebook, Instagram, or Snapchat, among others. Being on social media has thus made it possible for people worldwide to send pictures from one person to another. While many people might think this is only possible within modern society, evidence by Annie Rudd shows that Photography in the 19th century functioned as a social media as the rise of Carte de visite evidenced it. The paper will compare and contrast the concept of carte de visite photography with modern social media.
Before the world war, Photography was still a novelty idea. Louis Daguerre and others invented Photography, but their art was cumbersome and too expensive (Pinheiro, n.d.). However, these challenges were addressed with time until 1984 when André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri could print several photographs on a single sheet of paper which would then be mounted on cardstock. Then the paper would be cut into two-and-a-half and four-inch sizes enabling the photographers to produce hundreds of photographs in a day (Rudd, 2016). One commonality between Cartes de Visite (CDV) and the contemporary social media share is that they both help create amazing feelings and strengthen the bond. CDV, like modern social media, enabled people in the 19th century to send pictures to their relatives and friends so that they would see their progress and keep them in mind, which helped strengthen the bond (Coddington, 2016). People also make use of modern social media to send their pictures or pictures of memorable moments to their friends and relatives to strengthen their bonds. For instance, during the civil war, CDVs were used by family members and relatives to remember their absent loved ones.
Another commonality between the CDVs and contemporary social media is that they contributed to the rise of celebrity culture in America (Heather Hoagland, n.d.). The use of CDVs made it possible for people to collect portraits of not only their friends and relatives but they would also collect the portraits of famous me and women of their time (Heather Hoagland, n.d.). For instance, many people had portraits of John Wilkes Booth in their photo albums and other celebrities like Laura Keene. This is also common with contemporary social media, where people like to keep up with their favorite celebrities by having their pictures in their galleries.
The final similarity between the CDVs and contemporary social media is that the CDVs, like modern pictures, were very short-lived, creating ways of technological improvements of the CDVs. For instance, the CDVs only lasted for a few years before giving way to larger format cabinet cards (Heather Hoagland, n.d.). Contemporary social media is also subject to change depending on technological change. For example, new social media with improved features are constantly...