hepcat
Former PH, USN
I have had an epiphany of sorts.
I am not a purist, nor am I particularly opinionated in the film-digital debates. After almost fifteen years with digital, I am returning to film. Not exclusively; I'll still shoot digital as is necessary commercially (and personally when I'm being lazy,) but I've bought some film gear back to use actively. Let me explain.
I am kind of an old timer. I got interested in photography in high school in 1969. Like many here, I shot for the school paper and yearbook. My first job was selling photo-related goods in a retail store in 1970.
To give a little perspective, here's what photography looked like in 1970: I remember when Kodachrome was ASA 12 and if you really wanted fine-grained black and white, you shot Panatomic-X at ASA 32. I sold a TON of Verichrome Pan in my early days, and we stocked it in 127 and 620. Plus-X was King, and Tri-X was rated at ASA 320 on the box. Kodachrome 64 was pretty fast, but High Speed Ektachrome was smokin' at ASA 160. When I started selling cameras, the Leica M4 had only been out for about three years, the Nikon F with the Photomic Ftn finder was hot, and the Canon F1 had just been introduced. The Pentax Spotmatic, Minolta SRT101 and Konica Autoreflex T were flying off the shelves. We ordered stock from Ponder & Best and EPOI (Ehrenreich Photo Optical Inc.) Kodachrome was processed in K12, Ektachrome in E-4, Kodacolor was C22, and B&W polycontrast RC printing papers were beginning to come into their own. Shutterbug Magazine was just taking off, and PopPhoto was in its heyday. Heady times in photography. Things have changed some since then.
I've muddled along as a "working pro" off and on for some 4 decades now (I turned 59 this month.) I've done most things there are to do in photography from which one can derive income. I've sold equipment retail. I've shot for the Navy. I've done advertising, aerial, architectural, fine arts, forensics, portraiture, product illustration and weddings. I've shot commercially and owned my own studio. I ran a crime scene unit for about seven years. I've climbed the learning curve with different film camera systems in various formats. I've climbed the learning curve with digital. I've read extensively how to tweak files to get the maximum impact for what I want. I've taken PS classes. I've learned to appreciate Lightroom for what it can do, and through it all this past fifteen years, my darkroom has sat idle... waiting. I've returned to shooting commercially, albeit in a very different business climate today. My neighbor (a young woman) who lives across the street bought a Canon Rebel digicam and began doing portrait sessions for $30 and for that gives the client the finished files on a DVD (I used to charge a $30 sitting fee!) She does digital weddings for $250 (a tenth of what weddings used to bring.) She just opened a studio storefront up town... and there's already an established storefront studio in town that has been struggling for years (not mine.)
I use Flickr as cheap warehousing for images. We've seen social networking grow... Facebook, Instagram, and others. And we've seen the common small-town commercial photo opportunities shrink as "regular folks" have bought automated cameras that can now capture photographs themselves that are technically well exposed. Many of the staples of the market we expected to gain income from, portraits and weddings, have collapsed under the onslaught of competent entry-level DSLRs and high end P&S cameras in inexperienced hands, leaving us reeling to find a market for our skills.
How do we compete in a saturated market where inexpensive (and I'll say it... largely poor quality) imaging is ubiquitous?
There is a perception among the public, and even among some of us here, that film is superior to digital. Whether or not that is true is a matter of taste, of course, but the idea is beginning to gain ground in the public consciousness. There's been the seed of discontent planted that they're missing "something" with digital imaging; and fortunately that "something" is intangible.
I perceive that a differentiation of skills among "pros" will be the final fall-out from the film-digital transition. As film products become more and more rare among the general population, I think that practitioners of image making with film products will find a way to differentiate their work and make a market because of the medium they use. Let's face it, very few of us who have the skills to do wet-prints even have a darkroom any more! Darkroom skills are quickly becoming a lost art.
I'm gambling that advertising a return to film imaging will appeal to a smaller but affluent market segment who want to differentiate themselves with the images they have of their families and events.
I am semi-retired now and do not have to support a brick and mortar shop, I am also not seeing any business... nothing like there was just a few years ago! And I'm really not interested in doing $30 complete portrait sessions or $250 weddings. I'm not that hungry. So... I've decided that to differentiate myself in my local market, I'm going to advertise that I shoot film weddings... and anything else that clients wants on film, and do custom B&W hand-processing and custom darkroom wet-prints and charge appropriate up-scale fees. I have a couple of excellent local custom labs who still do C41 P&P. Pro film gear is the cheapest I've ever seen it. I've gotten a nearly new, two-body, seven lens, six back Hassy system for a LOT less than the cost of an M-E body alone. I'll continue to offer digital too, but to quote Paul McCarney:
"What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell"
Maybe I'm nuts, but I've got the skills to provide a product that few today still can... and I'm going to take advantage of it. Film, here I come! 😀
I am not a purist, nor am I particularly opinionated in the film-digital debates. After almost fifteen years with digital, I am returning to film. Not exclusively; I'll still shoot digital as is necessary commercially (and personally when I'm being lazy,) but I've bought some film gear back to use actively. Let me explain.
I am kind of an old timer. I got interested in photography in high school in 1969. Like many here, I shot for the school paper and yearbook. My first job was selling photo-related goods in a retail store in 1970.
To give a little perspective, here's what photography looked like in 1970: I remember when Kodachrome was ASA 12 and if you really wanted fine-grained black and white, you shot Panatomic-X at ASA 32. I sold a TON of Verichrome Pan in my early days, and we stocked it in 127 and 620. Plus-X was King, and Tri-X was rated at ASA 320 on the box. Kodachrome 64 was pretty fast, but High Speed Ektachrome was smokin' at ASA 160. When I started selling cameras, the Leica M4 had only been out for about three years, the Nikon F with the Photomic Ftn finder was hot, and the Canon F1 had just been introduced. The Pentax Spotmatic, Minolta SRT101 and Konica Autoreflex T were flying off the shelves. We ordered stock from Ponder & Best and EPOI (Ehrenreich Photo Optical Inc.) Kodachrome was processed in K12, Ektachrome in E-4, Kodacolor was C22, and B&W polycontrast RC printing papers were beginning to come into their own. Shutterbug Magazine was just taking off, and PopPhoto was in its heyday. Heady times in photography. Things have changed some since then.
I've muddled along as a "working pro" off and on for some 4 decades now (I turned 59 this month.) I've done most things there are to do in photography from which one can derive income. I've sold equipment retail. I've shot for the Navy. I've done advertising, aerial, architectural, fine arts, forensics, portraiture, product illustration and weddings. I've shot commercially and owned my own studio. I ran a crime scene unit for about seven years. I've climbed the learning curve with different film camera systems in various formats. I've climbed the learning curve with digital. I've read extensively how to tweak files to get the maximum impact for what I want. I've taken PS classes. I've learned to appreciate Lightroom for what it can do, and through it all this past fifteen years, my darkroom has sat idle... waiting. I've returned to shooting commercially, albeit in a very different business climate today. My neighbor (a young woman) who lives across the street bought a Canon Rebel digicam and began doing portrait sessions for $30 and for that gives the client the finished files on a DVD (I used to charge a $30 sitting fee!) She does digital weddings for $250 (a tenth of what weddings used to bring.) She just opened a studio storefront up town... and there's already an established storefront studio in town that has been struggling for years (not mine.)
I use Flickr as cheap warehousing for images. We've seen social networking grow... Facebook, Instagram, and others. And we've seen the common small-town commercial photo opportunities shrink as "regular folks" have bought automated cameras that can now capture photographs themselves that are technically well exposed. Many of the staples of the market we expected to gain income from, portraits and weddings, have collapsed under the onslaught of competent entry-level DSLRs and high end P&S cameras in inexperienced hands, leaving us reeling to find a market for our skills.
How do we compete in a saturated market where inexpensive (and I'll say it... largely poor quality) imaging is ubiquitous?
There is a perception among the public, and even among some of us here, that film is superior to digital. Whether or not that is true is a matter of taste, of course, but the idea is beginning to gain ground in the public consciousness. There's been the seed of discontent planted that they're missing "something" with digital imaging; and fortunately that "something" is intangible.
I perceive that a differentiation of skills among "pros" will be the final fall-out from the film-digital transition. As film products become more and more rare among the general population, I think that practitioners of image making with film products will find a way to differentiate their work and make a market because of the medium they use. Let's face it, very few of us who have the skills to do wet-prints even have a darkroom any more! Darkroom skills are quickly becoming a lost art.
I'm gambling that advertising a return to film imaging will appeal to a smaller but affluent market segment who want to differentiate themselves with the images they have of their families and events.
I am semi-retired now and do not have to support a brick and mortar shop, I am also not seeing any business... nothing like there was just a few years ago! And I'm really not interested in doing $30 complete portrait sessions or $250 weddings. I'm not that hungry. So... I've decided that to differentiate myself in my local market, I'm going to advertise that I shoot film weddings... and anything else that clients wants on film, and do custom B&W hand-processing and custom darkroom wet-prints and charge appropriate up-scale fees. I have a couple of excellent local custom labs who still do C41 P&P. Pro film gear is the cheapest I've ever seen it. I've gotten a nearly new, two-body, seven lens, six back Hassy system for a LOT less than the cost of an M-E body alone. I'll continue to offer digital too, but to quote Paul McCarney:
"What does it matter to ya
When you got a job to do
You gotta do it well
You gotta give the other fellow hell"
Maybe I'm nuts, but I've got the skills to provide a product that few today still can... and I'm going to take advantage of it. Film, here I come! 😀
