future of B&W

[Robert Choi]

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,159782,00.html

Kodak announced that they will stop producing B&W paper. We can hang on to any LF or Medium
format camera as much as we want, but will we still have the paper we can print on ?

What's the fuutre holds for film photographer ??

[Daniel Morgan]

There will always be a future for film photography.

Although the majority of people are switching over to digital there will always be people who prefer the look, feel, and process of traditional photography and there will always be a company that will cater to those people.

When I think about digital photography vs. traditional photography I see it as primarily a philosophical difference (seeing that almost anything you can do in traditional photography you can copy with digital.) One of the major differences between digital photography and traditional photography is the ability to make a completely irreversible mistake. Now, to many people this may not seem like an advantage, but I see it as something that is crucial in any artform. Because art isn't just about the final image, but about every step that goes to make that image, and about what can be learned about the human existence from the creation of that art (the artists perspective) or the viewing of that art (the viewers perspective) and nomatter how hard I try, when I look at a digital image I have a hard time connecting to it because I have had plenty of experience with both Photoshop and the darkroom and they are very different things.

I know I will probably get some harsh critism for this point of view (and I have in the past... most notably the Photgraphy professor at Skidmore College,) however I hope the digital photographers on this wonderful forum will try to embrace the idea of digital photography as simply a different medium. This in affect makes it better.

There will always be traditional photographers because for the people who feel this way they could never switch to digital photography, even if we are all pouring collodion on glass plates in 20 years.

[Alan Davenport]

What's the fuutre holds for film photographer ??

Film photographers have the same future prospects that tintype photographers had one hundred years ago. Enjoy it while you can.

[Mark Sawyer]

I have my doubts as to what the future holds for humanity in general...

For my own b/w photography, worrying about the present is worry enough. Perhaps I'd worry more if I thought it would do any good.

[Ross Hint]

Going to a practical world.

I want to know when Kodak stops producing B&W paper, what other brands that we can rely on. Ilford or someone else? Just imagine this happen today, where can you buy B&W paper now? Please advise.

[Janko Belaj]

At the very end (but before the end of the world;-)), when and if all factories world-wide stops with production of b&w photo paper, I'm quite sure that there will be emulsion(s) to buy. You will work with it in the same manner as you are working today with pt/pd process. And, after all, Kodak wasn't the first and isn't the last manufacturer of such products. Ilford, Fotokemika, Foma, Berger, Forte, Oriental, Maco... just to name the few of them...

[Donald Qualls]

If every manufacturer in the world drops B&W "silver gelatin" papers, I'll still be able to print B&W onto salted paper, albumen, platinum/palladium, van Dyke, cyanotype, gum, or carbon -- all processes that were in common use with glass wet plate negatives before Wyatt Earp got himself appointed Marshall. Even if film stops (or goes miles beyond my budget, which will probably happen sooner), there's always tintype/ambrotype/collodion and Daguerreotype.

[Alec Jones]

"What's the fuutre holds for film photographer ??"

I don't have a crystal ball, but I do see the English language is going to hell.

[bob carnie]

I agree with Mark on this one, I will concentrate on today and will let the global market decide the future. I will definately start coating alternative processes .

[tim atherton]

"I want to know when Kodak stops producing B&W paper, what other brands that we can rely on. Ilford or someone else? Just imagine this happen today, where can you buy B&W paper now? Please advise."

You don't ahve to imagine it - Kodak is stopping making B&W paper