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- Last Saturday of September
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Save Your Photos Day arrives every last Saturday of September, urging us to safeguard our cherished visual memories. This annual observance, initiated by the Save Your Photos Alliance, highlights the critical need to preserve both digital and physical photographs. Take action today by backing up your files, organizing your albums, and digitizing old prints to ensure your legacy endures.
Want to sponsor Save Your Photos Day? Learn how
Expected Save Your Photos Day Deals
As Save Your Photos Day approaches, look for special promotions from companies dedicated to photo preservation. In 2027, expect deals from brands like FOREVER, offering discounts on digital archiving and storage. Shutterfly and Snapfish often run sales on photo books and prints, encouraging people to get their digital images into tangible form. Cloud storage providers like Google Photos and Dropbox may feature expanded storage plans or premium features at reduced rates. Local photo labs and scanning services, such as ScanMyPhotos.com, could provide discounts on digitizing old slides and negatives. We will update this page with confirmed live deals as September approaches.
Platform Guide for Save Your Photos Day
Tag @nationaltoday_ and use #SaveYourPhotosDay. Share a carousel of your favorite preserved memories or a quick tutorial on a photo organization tip.
Mention National Today (facebook.com/nationaltoday) and use #SaveYourPhotosDay. Ask your community to share their oldest or most cherished photos and how they keep them safe.
YouTube
Subscribe to @NationalToday for holiday video content. Create a short video demonstrating a simple photo backup routine or a review of a photo management app.
Save Your Photos Day Hero
Catharine "Cathi" Nelson
History of Save Your Photos Day
The word Photography was first used in the 1830s. It was derived from the Greek words ‘photos’ meaning ‘light’ and ‘graphein’ meaning ‘to draw’ and supposedly coined by the British scientist Sir John Herschel.
Before the digital camera existed, there were earlier forms of photography that created images by playing with light and focusing it on specific objects that needed to be captured.
Heliography was the first type of photography, discovered by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1816. It involved using plates coated with bitumen and putting them inside an older prototype of the camera called a Camera Obscura. The plates were then exposed to sunlight for a significant period and the exposed parts became hard. The other parts of the plate were washed off. Imprints were thus made at first using sunlight.
The daguerreotype was another form of photography developed in 1837. It was named after Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. It didn’t create any negatives and used copper plates. The plate was exposed to a picture and sunlight for some time and then solidified with heated mercury fumes. After this, the plate would be washed using saltwater and the reversed photo would form. The daguerreotype was the first type of photography to have become popular in America.
There were other different types of photography like Calotype, Cyanotype, Ambrotype that were discovered at later stages. In 1935, Kodak introduced the color film Kodachrome. There were various processes involved in this, each using different colors of dyes like cyan, magenta, and yellow. Kodak was responsible for a lot of big inventions in the field of photography during this time. In 1975, Steve Sasson, who used to work at Kodak, was behind the invention of the world’s first digital camera.
Save Your Photos Day timeline
It is the first type of photography that forms images using sunlight and a camera prototype called the Camera Obscura.
Derived from Greek, the word is allegedly coined by the British scientist Sir John Herschel.
Is a more advanced type of photography than its predecessor quickly gains popularity.
Marks the birth of a new era in photography with the use of colors from different kinds of dye in film.
Steve Sasson, an employee of Kodak, invents the world’s first digital camera.
How Businesses Can Celebrate Save Your Photos Day
Local businesses can champion Save Your Photos Day by offering practical solutions and educational resources. Photo studios can host workshops on digitizing old prints or offer discounts on scanning services. Retailers selling external hard drives, cloud storage subscriptions, or archival supplies can run special promotions. Even local libraries can participate by providing public access to scanners and resources on digital preservation best practices, ensuring community members have the tools to protect their memories.
Save Your Photos Day FAQs
When is Save Your Photos Day?
Save Your Photos Day 2026 falls on Saturday, September 26, a perfect weekend opportunity to dedicate time to organizing and backing up your cherished memories.
Why is photo preservation important?
Photo preservation is crucial because digital files are vulnerable to corruption, accidental deletion, and hardware failure, while physical photos degrade over time. An estimated 1.72 trillion photos are taken globally each year, and without proper care, many of these precious memories could be lost forever.
How many photos are lost each year?
While exact figures are hard to pinpoint, studies suggest that millions of digital photos are lost annually due to device failure, accidental deletion, or cloud service issues. A 2020 survey indicated that approximately 30% of smartphone users had lost photos from their devices.
What are the best ways to save your photos?
The best strategies involve a ‘3-2-1 backup’ rule: three copies of your data, on two different types of media, with one copy offsite. This means keeping photos on your device, an external hard drive, and a cloud storage service like Google Photos or Dropbox.
How To Celebrate Save Your Photos Day
Bring out those dusty photo albums
Remember those giant photo albums in the storage room collecting dust? Bring them out one by one and start organizing them using labels and markers. Family albums contain many hidden treasures — see what you discover!
Backup photos into a drive
Backing up your pictures into an external hard drive or a cloud service like Google Photos will only take you a few minutes. Get started right away.
Make a digital archive
If you want to make all your photo albums from the past purely digital, then this option is for you. Locate a scanner and start scanning all of your photographs to digitize them and store them into an archive.
5 Captivating Facts About Photography
The first color photograph was taken in 1861
Suggested by Thomas Sutton, the color image was created by layering three separate images of red, green, and blue filters and projecting them onto a photosensitive plate.
The most viewed photograph of all time
The default Windows XP picture taken by Charles O’Rear in 1996 is the most viewed photograph in history.
Cat photos are not a current trend
Cat photos are one of the most popular Google searches now but they actually originated in the 19th century.
The earliest photograph is 200 years old
The photo called “View from the window” was taken by Joseph Niepce almost 200 years ago and it took eight hours to capture.
Coffee can be used to develop negatives
Black and white negatives can be developed using coffee, vitamin C, and washing soda.
Why We Celebrate Save Your Photos Day
To save our memories
Photos don’t last forever. They can get lost, damaged, or deleted. Taking care of our photos is crucial if we want to hold onto our memories.
For future generations
We are not the only audience of our photos. The generations that come after us will also want to see photos from the past. It is important to store pictures for their sake as well.
To organize our storage
Photos usually take up at least 60% to 70% of our storage space on our mobile phones. Backing them up into a drive will allow us to free up more space and make room for fresh memories.
Save Your Photos Day dates
| Year | Date | Day |
|---|---|---|
| 2025 | September 27 | Saturday |
| 2026 | September 26 | Saturday |
Social Media Tips for Save Your Photos Day
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