In 2007, humans took roughly 85 billion photos a year. Photography was a specialized craft that required expensive equipment, years of practice, and lots of time. Then the iPhone came out. Today in 2026, humans take roughly 2.1 trillion photos per year, a 25x increase. A single company, Instagram, is now worth 5x more than the entire global photography market combined back then.
The vast majority of photos today aren't taken by photographers anymore either. They're taken by people like you and me on the phones in our pockets. For us, photography isn't our craft — it's a reflex. You probably don't think twice about the 10 photos per day you snap on average. It's an everyday skill we've developed as a result of the radical democratization of the technology. This explosion of photography post-iPhone is one of the most concrete examples we have of "Jevons Paradox". When technology makes things cheaper and more abundant, our overall consumption counterintuitively increases.
Are there still photographers in the world in 2026? Absolutely. In fact, despite many eerily familiar doom-and-gloom predictions, the number of professional photographers worldwide has remained remarkably consistent for decades. We still hire them for life's biggest moments. Conferences, weddings, graduations. We probably always will too. When the game is on the line, you want the expert on your team.
