Right along with the vacuum tube (readily available on the web in droves) and lp's (several current mfr. of newly released vinyl). Go to the high end audio show in Vegas - about 400+ rooms many consisting of tubes, turntables, vinyl, etc.
Big consumer marketplace? Nah, not like the gazillions that go the main convention hall for CES. But enough for dozens of turntable mfr's and vacuum tubes.
My estimate is the same will hold true for silver based photography...
You guys having fun waking up this five year old thread?
Last edited by Amund BLix Aaeng; 16-Sep-2006 at 10:32.
We have a shop here in Honolulu that serves primarily the B&W market, they sell no digital equipment, only B&W paper, film, etc. The business is booming this year.Originally Posted by leeturner
I am transitioning to doing most of my hobby (serious?) work in B&W because I can make a quality print. It is getting very difficult for me to get a color print of what I consider acceptable quality. Most "labs" print at 300 dpi now and I just don't see the point of using large format or even film for that matter if you are going to throw that much information away in the printing process.
What Paul said.
Remember the typewriter? Well, guess what, people still type, more than ever, only these days they do it all in digital and nobody even bothers talking about "the sound of the typewriter" or "real words being put tangibly on real paper" or any such sentimental rubbish. And it's been what, 10 years at most since personal computers became really ubiquitious...
Vacuum tubes, vynil LPs, typewriters...
All of these technologies are much cheaper and easier to produce than chemical photographic supplies. When the consumption drops bellow certain level, and it will, or more precisely, when profitability of it all becomes thinner and it will even more certainly, the production will simply cease, with or without notice.
And the photographers of the day will either adapt to whatever processes or tools are going to be available or they will take up golf or something along those lines.
And the world will keep on turning as it always has.
Because this is all about tools. Photography, on the other hand, has always been more about capturing or even making images. Writing with light, if you will.
Somehow, I don't think we should be concerned about disapearance of light. Yet.
True, but some people, like me, don't want to have to sit in front of a computer to make prints. I find something most satisfying about loading a roll of film or sheet of film in the camera, that I couldn't get out of sitting in front of Photoshop.
This is also true. In fact, these are two independent truths that increasingly have less and less to do with each other...
I don't say this with malice, however. I hope that you and others like you will get to enjoy using film and all that goes with it for a long time to come. In fact, I am still using it myself, occassionally.
But facts usually have very little to do with hopes and wishes, except on those rare occassions when they just happen to coincide. Some call it providence, others call it wonders... I wouldn't plan my future on it, though, because I consider it no more than happenstance.
This side of the pond it is often difficult to obtain large format information and materials, other than from Mike Ware, so quite often I have had to contact Sammys LA to get the service I require. But,this morning I received by post an extensive catalogue detailing all the bits and bobs for alternative photography. This publication must have cost the company an arm and a leg to get to print. It is of top quality and
details products pertaining to black and white film photography. This serendiptous news has put me in a very positive frame of mind for the future. However, I was surprised that they are unable to obtain TMax RS Developer and do not stock LF sheet film - yet -their loss. The UK company is: www.firstcall-photographic.co.uk
What Paulr said.
Film is what's dying, not particularly B&W. Kids pick up the latest thing, not what their grandparents used. Their cameras are in their cell phones, so that is what photography means to them: a quick snap shot that can be sent and consumed. Film isn't just old fashioned, it is also foreign to the current digital age. It is dying roughly with my generation (I'm 54), a slow death, granted, that will take thirty years or so.
B&W imagery has become an archaism, exactly like B&W movies. The vast majority of such images and movies are historical, and the few still being produced are drenched with a looking-backwards aesthetic as far as the general public is concerned.
Personally I find this a little disappointing, as I am losing interest in color photography, or rather I *would* find it disappointing were I likely to outlive the availability and relevance of B&W, but I expect to die first.
And you can still buy upright, manual typewriters (albeit used), and ribbons for them, because there are still enough people who want/need to type stuff in places without dependable power for a computer/printer, or in an environment unfriendly to electronics, to keep a few repair shops open. Want to write the Great American Novel while living aboard a boat, either moored in salt water or under weigh on the ocean? An Underwood Office Model might be a better choice than a notebook -- and in an emergency, you can use it as a backup anchor...
But the technology that made photographs in the 1850s hasn't gone anywhere. Wet plate is still alive, still a one-by-one handmade operation, and with wet plates and alt-process printing techniques like carbon-pigment, platinum, or even the "lowly" Van Dyke Brownprint, B&W photography can potentially survive for, well, as long as we can get collodion and silver nitrate. And I know how to make both of those (though making collodion is rather further on the hazardous side than I care to go if I can avoid it). Let me rephrase -- as long as I can buy sulfuric acid, I'll be able to proceed (since I also know how to make sodium nitrate, from which I can make nitric acid given a supply of sulfuric). I know how to make sulfuric acid, too, but it's a major pain and the smell tends to attract unwanted attention...All of these technologies are much cheaper and easier to produce than chemical photographic supplies. When the consumption drops bellow certain level, and it will, or more precisely, when profitability of it all becomes thinner and it will even more certainly, the production will simply cease, with or without notice.
If a contact print at arm's length is too small to see, you need a bigger camera. :D
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