Instant viewing was an enormous shift for most
photographers. Suddenly the feeling of giving birth to your most creative and
artistic photos took on a new level. Gone were the days of waiting patiently
for the lab to develop your photos to see if they had worked – now they were
instantly available. Fantastic! No more “I wish I had” and more “let’s try that
again”. That was up until most photographers realised that the magic of waiting
for the right moment, skill with lighting and the general professionalism that
made a difference between your next recommendation or not was suddenly eroded
by the ease of use that digital offered – now everyone who owned a digital
camera stood a good chance of getting some fairly decent results…. A lot of photographers went to the wall
because of this.
These days the art of photography has gone. The scatter gun
approach of taking as many photos as possible knowing full well that Camera Raw
and Photoshop are your best pals have completely killed it off. This mass photo
taking desire has permanently shifted the way in which we take photos today and
while some may argue that it has allowed those less able to take great pictures
others argue that it has ruined photography.
Cost has also been a major driving factor with photography. In
the previous century we happily paid for film processing and developing. It was
part of the excitement waiting for your holiday pictures to be processed and
developed: An instant replay of your holiday after you had come back to drab Britain with
its awful weather always lifted your spirits and was worth it. Not forgetting
to hand your photos around to work colleagues and family members to show how
cosmopolitan you had become, even if you did wear socks with your sandals on
the beach!
Films had to be processed if you wanted to see what was on
them. No processing - no pictures and the “keeping up with the Jones’s” meant
everyone wanted to do it. Digital changed this completely – now you could email
a picture of you and your family to everyone while you were still on holiday!
How cool was that – “missing you” as you rub it in by sipping a margarita on
the beach looking smug and tanned at the same time knowing full well it would
irritate those who received it. Fantastic!
Suddenly this new freedom spread like wild fire – why are
you still using film when you could be using digital? Get yourself a new digital
camera…. And another, and another, and another. See, what people forgot was
just like the computer industry digital camera manufacturers had already
figured this out and realised quite quickly that they would soon be out of
pocket if they released a perfect digital camera on the market straight away.
So they milked the market for everything that it had and just like sheep we all
forgot about the costs of the cameras and remembered the savings that we were
making by not using “expensive” labs to process the film. Camera after camera
with more megapixels and features soon easily eclipsed film processing and
developing costs, but it was worth it – wasn’t it? Easily viewable on computer
– “No Wait – where’s the photos of the wedding?”, or “why won’t my computer
start up?”, Hmmmm, then you have to add in the cost of the camera cards, photo
editing software and digital photo frames. Not so cheap now!
Not long after the digital revolution camera phones started
to make an appearance. After all how often did you wish you had a camera but
were unable to capture the moment because you didn’t have your camera with you?
Now you too could take a photo with a mobile communication device and rejoice
that you managed to take a truly awful, blurry image that was jpeged to hell
with abysmal colours. Now your photo collection started to resemble a poor
digital television reception but that was okay as it was “free”, except you had
to pay through the nose to obtain the “must have” phone that you could show off
to your mates in the pub. Shame that the quality of the photos were so bad that
you would be better off deleting them rather than try and pretend that they
were any where near the quality of a 6” x 4” photo from even the cheapest of
film processor labs…. And now you realise that your memories have been ruined
by inferior technology.
Next we even had the ability to print our own photos. Yes,
you too can have the ability to print mediocre photos from your own inkjet
printer with paper that is easily marked and has printer lines running through
it, and the ink is more expensive than champagne per millilitre! Despite this
millions fell for it. The idea that a fifty quid printer was going to somehow
match the quality of a hundred thousand pound minilab didn’t seem to put people
off…. (Yes they really did cost that!)
Soon we learned that the value of photography had fallen
through the basement and had entered bargain bucket status. Many professional
companies struggled to keep up with the changing markets - I should know I worked
for a pro lab in Edinburgh
which went bust. We dropped our prices, offered more value but ultimately the
end result was people no longer cared about quality and just wanted quantity.
We refused to compromise on quality and the end result was the company no
longer trades. I’m not sad though. There are millions of high quality 6” x 4”
prints that we did that will be around long after I’m dead. I don’t think you
could say the same for your digital photos!
It wasn’t just us, though. I know of at least seven other
labs in Edinburgh
that went pear shaped with exactly the same problems. The problems didn’t stop
there either. Ilford got itself in trouble and had to restructure, as did Agfa
and now even the mighty Kodak has fallen. We were a Fuji lab and thankfully at the time this is
being written they are still pushing for high quality prints – long may this
continue.
So is film dead? Definitely not. There is a hard core of
amateur photographers out there who will never give up on film. Film to them is
an art form as it requires skill to take a great photo. They know that the
average person will never match their ability if they are given a film camera
and they love to show off their ability. They realise that long after people
have thrown out their broken photo printers and realised that having your
photos professionally printed really will outlive modern technology that
respect for the industry will return in time.
It is also difficult to ignore a century of film processing
and printing – just how can you compare one hundred years of film processing and
printing against ten years of digital? What do you do with all those films and
prints? I mean are you supposed to ignore your life prior to digital printing?
Don’t you long to see your films and slides again? Well this is where film
processing takes an odd turn – people actually love to reminisce and if that
means finding a way to convert these older film formats into a modern digital
age then that is what they are going to do.
Scanning slides, negatives and photographs allows you to
view them with the exact same convenience that you would get from using a
digital camera. These days the technology has come on a long way and the
quality you can get from scanning a decent film is just as good as digital photography.
In fact there is a lot of film out there, so in many respects film processing
is dead but processed films are far from dead and will be around for many years
to come.
