Film Photography Makes a Stunning Comeback

Does anyone remember way back thirteen years ago in 2003 when Kodak, Fuji and other analog camera film manufacturing companies went from owning the market to about an 80% reduction in market share from the digital photography revolution? I remember, and was initially happy about it at the time as I thought of how much money I would be saving on purchasing film and developing. I was concerned with the possible "laziness" factor coming in to play due to the fact we were now capable of shooting unlimited numbers of digital images and sharing pics would also now became easier than ever. George Eastman would have been turning over in his grave!

This post on EuropeanCEO, written by By Temoor Iqbal goes in depth with regard to the downfall in 2003 to the current comeback in 2016 of the camera film industry in the United States and abroad.

Pyramids of Giza photo by Walter Rothwell

Sales of photographic film have been steadily rising over the last few years, with professionals and amateurs alike rediscovering the artistic control offered by manual processes and the creative satisfaction of a physical end product.

In the early 2000s, the world of photography changed forever. Though digital cameras had been widespread since the mid-1990s, the technology did not produce sufficiently high-quality results for professional and serious amateur photographers.

Around 2003, however, this changed, and vast swathes of professionals made the jump from analogue to digital, decimating an entire industry in the process. “Companies went from processing in the region of 5,000 rolls of film per day to 20 percent of that in a six-month period; as you can imagine, there were many casualties”, said Professor Steve Macleod, Director of Metro Imaging, a professional photography lab.

For a decade after this crash, sales of camera film steadily dropped as digital camera technology continued to improve. However, all was not lost for the analogue world. According to Kodak Alaris, a spinoff of legendary film manufacturer Kodak, sales of Kodak Professional film grew more than five percent worldwide between 2013 and 2015. Of course, this figure is not even close to reaching the dizzy heights of yesteryear, when film was the only tool available to photographers, but that might not even matter. Indeed, it seems the future role of analogue photography is not to challenge the dominance of digital, but to rest alongside it in a particular niche.

Legends of the past
Perhaps the best-known film producer in the world, Kodak is still operating in the aforementioned form of Kodak Alaris. What’s more, the company is continuing to innovate, with new films such as Kodak Portra designed specifically to be scanned, reflecting the preference of many modern film users to have scans rather than prints as an end product.

Kodak’s one-time rival, Fuji Film, is also still producing camera film, but focuses primarily on its Instax line of instant camera paper. This reflects one of the many unexpected trends in analogue photography; sales of Instax cameras have risen steadily since 2013, and are expected to hit five million units this year. This pattern is firmly being fueled by a young demographic – typically those born and raised in the digital age, for whom a printed photograph is something of a novelty.

Ilford Photo found that 30 percent of film users were under 35 years old, and 60 percent had only started using film in the last five years.

Creative control
The question that these findings inevitably raises is – why? Why shoot film, when digital cameras are so advanced? In a sense, this line of enquiry is born of a misunderstanding. For many, there is an impression that film is an expensive medium compared to digital, which is ‘free’ in a sense, once the initial equipment has been purchased. “This is a myth. The cost of shooting analogue is immediate and physical: you have to buy film, you have to pay to have it processed and scanned. With these criteria, digital appears less expensive and many wonder why anyone would choose to shoot film. However, people fail to build into their costing how long it takes to edit digital photos. If they were to cost out how long it takes to edit and prepare digital files for production, it would be equivalent or near to the cost of shooting analogue; they balance out in the end”, said Macleod.

Similarly, there is often a lack of understanding of the experience of shooting film; the vast majority of digital camera users nowadays have never actually tried shooting with an analogue camera, just as most music listeners have never handled, played and fully listened to a vinyl record. There is a simplicity to the pared-down experience that can be of genuine creative benefit. “Necessity is the mother of invention; there is no point staring at the back of a film camera after taking a shot – that time and energy is already going into the next one. Not knowing immediately what has been captured is a creative advantage”, said Walter Rothwell, a professional photographer who regularly uses analogue cameras for his work.

I hope you have all enjoyed reading Temoor Iqbal's blog post on the recent return of 35mm camera film and some tried and true techniques that just can't be reproduced in the digital realm of photography. 

David :-)


Article source: http://www.europeanceo.com/culture/film-photography-makes-a-stunning-comeback