"As of 2024, approximately 5.3 billion photos are taken worldwide each day."

Sean · May 23, 2025

Some may debate the use of the word "photos" and prefer "images," but in any case, this is a wild number.

I’ve wrestled with this explosion of image making. With numbers like these, it almost evokes a sense of what’s the point? Why create one more image when over 5.3 billion have been taken today alone?

Yet, I still find myself undeterred by this level of global output. In some ways, it has made me turn inward and embrace photography as something far more personal. The act of photographing becomes more singular and meditative, fulfilling to me, with no concern for recognition.

Excluding professionals, do you think, given this sheer volume, photography is becoming more competitive or more personal?

BrianShaw · May 23, 2025

I believe it. Mostly not film photos/images.

Note: arguing semantics is frowned upon in this forum.

It punctuates the point that pictures are pictures, no matter how they are created… and many are being created. Not sure why that’s something to struggle over, though.

To answer your question: definitely more personal.

thinkbrown · May 23, 2025

I think photography has become a utility for a lot of people instead of or in addition to an art form. I take a large number of pictures on my phone every time I'm working on a project because it serves as an alternative to taking written notes.

Don_ih · May 23, 2025

Has nothing to do with what I do. Has nothing to do with what you do. It doesn't matter how many photos are taken today when you consider that only you take the photos you take.

Truzi · May 23, 2025

How does the study define photo/image?

What I mean is, if I take a selfie with my phone, and didn't like how it turned out, taking another immediately, are both part of the total? Memory is cheap, so I may not delete extras simply to avoid wasting time.

I may take a picture of something to show someone later, just because it was interesting, but not anything I'd really keep. Like how an idiot parked, or a generic branded Jenga game at the local discount store - just because it was humorous.

Similar to Thinkbrown, I will use my phone to document things as I go about my work. Not documented for posterity, but for a quick reference... how to put it back together, what the part number is, etc.

If I'm using film, and bracket a shot, is each counted separately? What if I'm using an auto-winder to get a good shot of something moving quickly?

These are all images, but do they count?

Surely, an adjusted number would still be quite large, considering the technology is a bit more ubiquitous (and volume accessible) per capita than film cameras and printing ever were.

My phone takes pictures. Free web hosting lets me upload a ton of photos online. I may feel important and accomplished, but does anyone really notice?

I'd say it's more personal than competitive. Excluding professionals, I'd say it always was more personal, even before digital.

loccdor · May 24, 2025

The number is pretty bogus because it will expand or contract dramatically depending on how the photo or image are defined.

If you were to restrict it to still images that have any staying power (i.e. at least exist for a few decades) it goes down by orders of magnitude.

Expand it to frames of video and now you're in the bazillions-per-second realm, most of which gets deleted before the next time the sun rises as the capturer didn't like or need the results.

joho · May 24, 2025

"As of 2024, approximately 5.3 billion photos are taken worldwide each day."

I would not use the [phrase] photography - but app-graphy. the digital intervention to image making mostly with iphones -ipads -just think the how much money is consumed - and squandered
with -out a worthy photo being made ?????

nikos79 · May 24, 2025

Out of these million photos which are seemed to be taken almost compulsively or to record your every day life (and then be forgotten somewhere in your phone) I would argue that a very very small percent is photography in my very own personal definition same as not all million text messages exchanged every day is not poetry

Sean · May 24, 2025

A few more stats, although I can't vouch for the accuracy:

As of 2025, approximately 1.3 billion images are shared on Instagram every day.
As of 2025, approximately 350 million photos are uploaded to Facebook each day.
As of 2024, Flickr users upload approximately 25 million photos per day
x.com estimate is 135 million

Insta and Flickr would probably be closer to 'artistic' image posts (still maybe only half of them for that purpose). That is a huge wash of daily images, hard to keep up with so you need to be extremely selective of what feeds to follow as the scroll is endless.

I'll likely continue doing what I like and sharing to a few places at times including here of course. It would be nice to do a gallery show one of these days. I don't feel the age of mass produced photography and AI will impact me much on a personal level, but I'm not striving to be a professional photographer.

Don_ih · May 24, 2025

There's no reason to dismiss the quality of the billions of photos per day. Even if only 0.0001% of them are "good" photos, that is way more than the number of "good" photos taken per day 30 years ago. "Good" also no longer needs to mean "will last for decades" (as @loccdor mentioned). I don't think many people find photos so precious and are quick to delete them when they run out of space.

They really are more like text messages, as @nikos79 said.

BrianShaw · May 24, 2025

If a photo/image is copied/duplicated, does it count as 1 picture or two?

nikos79 · May 24, 2025

Sean said:
Some may debate the use of the word "photos" and prefer "images," but in any case, this is a wild number.

I’ve wrestled with this explosion of image making. With numbers like these, it almost evokes a sense of what’s the point? Why create one more image when over 5.3 billion have been taken today alone?

Yet, I still find myself undeterred by this level of global output. In some ways, it has made me turn inward and embrace photography as something far more personal. The act of photographing becomes more singular and meditative, fulfilling to me, with no concern for recognition.

Excluding professionals, do you think, given this sheer volume, photography is becoming more competitive or more personal?

Quite relevant article if you don't mind the long read. Some answers and more questions there

Platon Rivellis - The digital age and the many identities of Photography

Ο επίσημος ιστότοπος του Πλάτωνα Ριβέλλη, Φωτογράφου και Δασκάλου Φωτογραφίας

www.rivellis.gr

AZD · May 24, 2025

On any given day I might actually care about (approximately) 1.89e-10 of those photos. Mostly of my dog, who is the best dog, naturally. Therefore, he is recorded on film for many future generations to admire.

MurrayMinchin · May 24, 2025

I wonder what the number would be for printed, or physically existing photographic images?

I ask this as one who now takes initial images in the digital realm, then uses them to create negatives for alt process prints. The digital step is like a rough sketch and the final 'existing in this world' print is the intended photograph.

nikos79 · May 24, 2025

From my personal experience people around me almost no one prints their photos any more. I find it sad

koraks · May 24, 2025

I think the discussion on definitions and semantics can and really should be set aside in this case. It just doesn't mean much. The question what constitutes a photo is kind of moot; plenty of the images created on a daily basis are indeed photographic captures. Even if some (many) are entirely digitally generated, plenty remain. It doesn't change anything about the structure of the issue.

As to whether many, all or just a few of the photos are 'good' - that's a dead end street just the same. What's good is entirely subjective. For Paula, any blurry and poorly exposed photo of her toddler Ben will be good if it captures his unique way of smearing his snot across daddy's face. For Paul, a photo is great even if it's compositionally horrible and overexposed, as long as it captures the spot where he can find that hex bolt at the backside of the V8 cylinder head he's trying to remove. For me, a photo is good if it sends a shiver down my belly and some of that has to do with compositional power, with technical qualities being qualifiers. It's different for everyone. Many of the photos taken on a daily basis are good, many are horrible. Again, it doesn't affect the question as such.

And the question as such maybe forces us to acknowledge that it really shouldn't matter in the first place. Whether a thousand, a million or ten billion photos are created every month or year - what difference does it make? Yes, it matters if you're trying to sell - either for monetary rewards, or in a proverbial sense; i.e. being seen, landing on top of the pile, etc. For how many of us is that really relevant? And for those of us who feel it's relevant, it is something we sensibly should experience as relevant - is that really what makes us tick?

I just printed a series of photos of our recent trip to Crete. None of them are earth-shockingly good, interesting or meaningful. My wife just now asked why I bothered printing them at all. Not that she didn't enjoy them, but she genuinely wondered what makes me decide to print a photo. I indicated that for me, the photo is done when it's printed. It's just that. I don't really mind if it's not seen by anyone except myself. It's just the conclusion to a process I enjoy. In the case of our holiday snaps, they will be seen by a handful of family members. But that's inconsequential. Whether or not I remember to bring the pile of prints to my sister's tomorrow, the process of making those images gave me satisfaction, in many ways. And none of that satisfaction has anything to do with the gazillion other images other people were working on. That's a different universe.

BrianShaw · May 24, 2025

If we can’t philosophize about the meaning of “photo” then how do we know what was counted/estimated?

koraks · May 24, 2025

You can count all you want, it just doesn't make any difference.

What do you expect will happen? We philosophize a bit, redefine the scope so it's more narrow and then we all decide that the annual production of true, proper photos in our sense is only a couple of dozen, so hey, we get to stand out in the crowd (or whatever positive thing there supposedly is to the number being smaller)? I think @Sean asks an interesting question: what the massive number of images/photos/pixelmaps being produced means for our personal motivations. The methodological side is a sideshow at best.

nikos79 · May 24, 2025

I think the perception of photograph has changed. People take some photos to send them to someone and say "hey look I was there" and then the photos are lost within the endless memory of their phones.

You lose the notion of recurring time that you feel when you take a photo, print it, and then revisit it many times at different times.

This time continuum is broken the photos are now only made for immediate consumption...

Don_ih · May 24, 2025

koraks said:
What's good is entirely subjective.

If you're only looking for a subjective notion, that's all you'll find. There are plenty of ways to come to a rather objective notion of a "good" photo. The easiest would be "here's a photo that many people consider good" and determine the rationale later.

You offer a lot of excuses to stop talking about things. An interesting choice for someone who exists on a forum.

nikos79 said:
People take some photos to send them to someone and say "hey look I was there" and then the photos are lost within the endless memory of their phones.

Frankly, that's no different from the previous extra set of prints sent to relatives and friends or family portrait stuffed into the Christmas card.

And the vast majority of photos taken for commercial purposes never even lasted that long (although many still languish on Getty Images).

BrianShaw said:
If we can’t philosophize about the meaning of “photo” then how do we know what was counted/estimated?

It's fairly reasonable that whatever was counted was the result of a single shutter operation - a single still image capture, using whatever. No philosophy required, just the naive idea of what results in a photo someone can look at.

And I guess that's all I will want to say on the matter.

koraks · May 24, 2025

Don_ih said:
You offer a lot of excuses to stop talking about things.

I prefer to focus on what I consider the essence of the question. That others desire to discuss things in the margins that I find irrelevant is up to them. Pointing it out is my prerogative, as it is of anyone who would desire to do so. And this diversion is yet another one of those things I consider a rather silly and unnecessary one from the topic at hand. But of course, room 'needs' to be made for subterfuge. Otherwise it wouldn't be fun, now, wouldn't it?

wiltw · May 24, 2025

nikos79 said:
From my personal experience people around me almost no one prints their photos any more. I find it sad

OTOH, 'in the old days' every shot was printed, but folks did not shoot as many shots simply because of the expence incurred with every frame [exposed+processed+printed] so it would take months to finish a single roll. Now, when I hear so many photographers who take 3-5 exposures with every shutter button press, it is with a sense of relief that material resources are not being consumed and filling trash cans to cope with their amplified shot rate!

But I do find some degree of sadness in how transitory it has become in the recording of events, and the fact that our digital images will vanish so readily as the reality of the non-permanece of digitial data storage strikes home in more minds. Music transferred to digital storage only 30 years ago has been discovered to be unretrievable! And few bother to get digital displays to even momentarily portray events of the past to refresh memories, almost like nothing in the past really matters.

MurrayMinchin · May 24, 2025

Sean said:
...I’ve wrestled with this explosion of image making. With numbers like these, it almost evokes a sense of what’s the point? Why create one more image when over 5.3 billion have been taken today alone?...

Waaaay back in photography school, it always amazed me how a bunch of us could go to one location and our photographs would be so different. So no, it doesn't bother me that there might be one trillion, nine hundred thirty-four billion, five hundred million photos taken per year. Also, given where we live and my habit of meandering off trail, chances are many things I photograph may have never been photographed before.

These days my wife and I can be in the same place, sometimes shoulder to shoulder on our boats deck and our photos are different. She usually zooms in and has the instincts of a street photographer while photographing birds & animals, while I invariably place them in their environment with my feet firmly planted in a carefully composed landscape tradition.

Sean said:
...Excluding professionals, do you think, given this sheer volume, photography is becoming more competitive or more personal?

On the competitive front, it would be interesting to see if there has been a measurable increase in galleries accepting photography and/or an increase in the number of photographers trying to get in.

I would hope, if there was more competition, that this would make photographers dig deep to find their own particular way of seeing, to make their work even more of a personal expression. That would be the best way of separating oneself from the herd.

Picsnbits · May 24, 2025

I would like to suggest that these images are not photographs within the strict meaning of the word until they have been converted into some tangible form; a paper print, a slide or any solid format.

MurrayMinchin · May 24, 2025

Picsnbits said:
I would like to suggest that these images are not photographs within the strict meaning of the word until they have been converted into some tangible form; a paper print, a slide or any solid format.

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