Film photography, a good business in the future ?

[dwross]

cyrus,

Me, grinning ear to ear. Thank you.

[Richard Mahoney]

... And I don't think "good business" is the right question, but rather "good living". As in the now-archaic question from my parents' generation: Is there a living in that? ... As to data storage vs. film storage--that's not much of an influence on the "Is there a living in that?" question. ...

Yes it's been a while since I've heard people talking of making a living. Once relations also used to ask `What are you going to do with your life?' But that seems to have fallen by the wayside too. It's the same with `positions' and `posts', now everyone's just `got a job' (cringe) ...

Now as to storage and archiving ... actually, I do think it is germane. Film is, it seems to me, *relatively* inexpensive to store. I'm uncertain, sometimes, if people realize just how expensive digital storage really is. Leaving aside the cost of power (which isn't negligible) and the cost of the box itself it can be sobering to add up the likely cost of disks over one's working life. I haven't looked into the reliability of disks recently but historically one could only expect a consumer grade disk to last about two years. A server grade disk on the other hand could be expected to last for five years -- at about five times the cost in this part of the world. While it's true that in practice many disks do last longer, one was has to accept the increased risk, which for critical data is unacceptable. And I'm not even going to broach the costs associated with data migration ...

I'm certainly not in any way anti-digital but I do think that it sometimes makes business -- or even hobbyist -- sense to sit down and do your sums. As Jens has said, when one has taken everything into account, sometimes digital is just not worth it, and film remains a reasonably cost effective option.


Kind regards,

Richard

[mdm]

cyrus,

Me, grinning ear to ear. Thank you.

Me too, your 3 Graces print and the breaking wave print on your website are both some of my favourites. Show them the way.

[Greg Miller]

Yes it's been a while since I've heard people talking of making a living. Once relations also used to ask `What are you going to do with your life?' But that seems to have fallen by the wayside too. It's the same with `positions' and `posts', now everyone's just `got a job' (cringe) ...

Now as to storage and archiving ... actually, I do think it is germane. Film is, it seems to me, *relatively* inexpensive to store. I'm uncertain, sometimes, if people realize just how expensive digital storage really is. Leaving aside the cost of power (which isn't negligible) and the cost of the box itself it can be sobering to add up the likely cost of disks over one's working life. I haven't looked into the reliability of disks recently but historically one could only expect a consumer grade disk to last about two years. A server grade disk on the other hand could be expected to last for five years -- at about five times the cost in this part of the world. While it's true that in practice many disks do last longer, one was has to accept the increased risk, which for critical data is unacceptable. And I'm not even going to broach the costs associated with data migration ...

I'm certainly not in any way anti-digital but I do think that it sometimes makes business -- or even hobbyist -- sense to sit down and do your sums. As Jens has said, when one has taken everything into account, sometimes digital is just not worth it, and film remains a reasonably cost effective option.


Kind regards,

Richard

Let's do some quick math here. You can buy 1TB drives for about $50 (I'm being conservative here - here's a decent 2TB external drive for $80 with free shipping and 2 year warranty). A 1TB drive would hold about 1,000 1GB files. Buy a set of 3 drives for $150 and you can have 3 identical copies of each file. That comes to a grand total of $0.15 per file ($0.05 per copy x 3 copies).

Backup drives are mostly going to last at least 5 years, because they sit idle except for 10 minutes per day when they are being written to. They don't spin if they are not being read or written to. Yes, some will fail in less than 5 years, but about as many will last more than that.

Migration cost is virtually $0.00. You replace an old drive with a new drive, whatever type of technology, and you just copy from the old drive to the new drive. Tiff, jpg, psd files will be supported for a long, long time. With billions of images in each format, they will not be obsolete in my lifetime.

Electricity cost is actually negligible. When's the last time you saw a hard drive spec that mentioned wattage. Nobody cares because it they draw so little current.

There generally is no space cost, because for photographers they just sit under the desk or on a shelf.

We don't need to account for risk, because we have 3 copies to account for that (at least one copy should be offsite to protect against fire, theft, water, lightning strikes,...). The risk is actually smaller than with film because with film you carry that risk of fire, theft, water, lightning strikes, fungus, mold,...

So for about $3 per image, let's say $4 to account for electricity and other misc. costs, and you can have 3 copies of a 1GB file for 100 years. And that assumes that the storage cost will not go down in that time frame (which is virtually impossible). Let say I am crazy and more than double it to $10 per image (that's $0.10 per year). Is that really too much to ask for 100 years of storage? One archival sleeve for 4x5 will cost about that much.

[tgtaylor]

Totally agree. I can't help myself from adding one more point, though. We are not limited to glass plates. Handmade film is even easier to make and handles just like commercial. In addition, I don't see any real danger of the constituent ingredients disappearing anytime soon. I'm a bit more concerned (and that's not much) that some of the digital photo equipment will follow the same kind of trajectory that audio has followed. All your grandma's music on tape? Ouch.

The attached images were photographed with a Baby Graphic (2-1/4" x 3-1/4") on handcoated sheet film.

Denise
www.thelightfarm.com

Thank you for that wonderful post Denise. It's comforting to know that if film does reach the point that it is no longer produced commercially, one can still coat their own. Actually coating your own may be the better avenue to pursue for those of us that are always searching for that truly unique point of view.

Thomas

[tgtaylor]

There is probably some marketing advantage to the whole handmade process for selling prints at a craft show. But I doubt that people buying photography because they want pictures (as opposed to wanting art) care, and I doubt people buying stuff because it is Important Art care. So, maybe it matters in the middle a bit. Is there a living in that? Not if the supplies dry up, no matter how good the photographer markets the "traditional handmade" aspect.

I may be wrong but I venture to say that anyone purchasing "pictures", excepting those that purchase for purely commercial reasons, also wants "art."

Thomas

[mdm]

You are all missing the point. Who cares about negatives or digital files, make archival prints, thats what photographers do. Do people care about Uncle Earls negatives, no, they care about original Ansel Adams prints. I suggest you incinerate all your negatives and smash all your archival drives sometime before you die. Really, who cares other than you. leave some nice prints behind and the world will be better for them.

[Brian C. Miller]

... And I don't think "good business" is the right question, but rather "good living". As in the now-archaic question from my parents' generation: Is there a living in that?

There is probably some marketing advantage to the whole handmade process for selling prints at a craft show. But I doubt that people buying photography because they want pictures (as opposed to wanting art) care, and I doubt people buying stuff because it is Important Art care. ...

Rick "thinking those who extol the virtues of film had better be able to point to prints that demonstrate those virtues, if they are going to make a living based on that schtick--and they had better buy Kodak stock, too, and lots of it" Denney

Different clients, different market. What sets apart one business from another? Why should someone go with photographer A rather than photographer B? Are you selling a commodity, or a (semi-)unique item?

I'll jump for a moment to something which is also near and dear to my heart: coffee. When was the last time you drank Starbucks coffee, straight and black? Did you enjoy it? Did you immediately wish you had another cup?

Every business has a selling point. Are the goods and services a better value at one company than another?

Photography, as has been lamented since the late 19th century, has become a commodity, with everybody able to participate. I understand that modern wedding photography came about after WWII, beings that newly-discharged military photographers would descend on a wedding, with several offering photographs to the bride and groom. Previously, based on my granparents, they got one formal photograph, and that was it.

So what in our modern age sets apart a photography business? Good product, certaintly. Unique product, even better. There are lots of successful photography businesses. There are plenty of books on how to run a photography business. And most importantly, most of it comes down to actually running a business, not dreaming about it.

[Marko]

Then again, here's Schneider's take on this question...

[Richard Mahoney]

Let's do some quick math here. You can buy 1TB drives for about $50 (I'm being conservative here - here's a decent 2TB external drive for $80 with free shipping and 2 year warranty). A 1TB drive would hold about 1,000 1GB files. Buy a set of 3 drives for $150 and you can have 3 identical copies of each file. That comes to a grand total of $0.15 per file ($0.05 per copy x 3 copies). ....

Greg, I think we may be talking at cross purposes here. I'd wouldn't consider putting important data on the type of hardware you're suggesting. For starters, you might like adjust your calculations to include disks that have slightly better performance and are a little more dependable:

HP 600GB 6G SAS 15K rpm LFF (3.5-inch) Quick-release ...
http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product/sk...tno/574758-B21


Best,

Richard