On the other hand, my income is over 20 times what it was 40 years ago.
Don't complain about the cost of paper or film
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I asked how many average people were taking pictures every few minutes in 1981. Both you and Matt missed the point of what I originally said, which was "We now live with a completely different mentality about what should be photographed, who should photograph it, what should photograph it, and what should be done with the picture." In the boxes and boxes of pictures from your parents, how many pictures were of their lunch or where they parked the car or what they wore that morning or of your schoolwork or of their drivers license? How many "selfies" were there?
In 1981, in my family, there may have been a roll of film shot. There were a dozen or so rolls shot in the 70s. One of my cousins showed up with an SLR and I asked him why he was bothering to take photos of flowers.
My recollection, growing up in very middle class, middle England, was that the average person did not shoot much film. As others have said, the average person wasn't a photography enthusiast and had a rather poor point and shoot camera. In the mid to late 80s more compact zoom cameras came along but in general people did not know many photography skills. They would take a roll of Kodak Gold 200, or similar, on holiday once or twice a year...maybe shoot half a roll at Christmas and on their kids throughout the year. A lot of these people shot perhaps three rolls of film a year...and these were the majority.
My dad, who *was* an enthusiast and who built his own camera at university in the late 50s (also learning dark room techniques).had a second hand 1930s Ikonta and even with both my parents earning above average salaries film and developing was considered quite expensive. Before the advent of the mini lab, D&P was pretty expensive. We were lucky, living close to PTP which was the huge lab in Stevenage that did all the processing for Dixons and PhotoPost. But before the advent of the mini lab, that was still quite expensive. When dad taught me photography in the late 70s it was impressed on me how much film and processing cost, and not to waste a shot. The mini lab reduced costs and increased workflow. But they didn't really come into the market much until the mid 80s. At that point, the total point of shooting a roll of film probably halved. And more processing labs started offering "free film with D&P" or discount film. Suddenly you could get film plus D&P for the cost of going to a camera shop and picking up a roll of film from them. It genuinely was cheap then. But the pervading way to use film was still to shoot a handful of rolls per year because most people weren't enthusiasts and.....weren't actually very good at it.
The way we take photographs has radically changed. The mini lab, with it's faster workflow (no longer had to wait 24-72 hours for D&P), it's cheaper running costs, simpler operation and later automated/digital printing made the whole phenomenon of "wasting film" possible in ways it simply wasn't unless one shot B&W and processed by hand. And then digital cameras and the camera phone...suddenly we could literally take photos *everywhere* and everywhen. How many people took cameras clubbing in the 90s or before? I remember shooting small to medium gigs in the 90s and being one of two or three in an audience of hundreds with any sort of camera....and the only one who's camera wasn't flashing. Now pretty much everyone is using a phone to photograph, record or video gigs. To anyone who has forgotten those times or who is too young to remember them...the idea that you had 12 photos and had to be careful because they cost a lot compared to your or your parents' weekly wages....is something totally alien.
My dad, who *was* an enthusiast and who built his own camera at university in the late 50s (also learning dark room techniques).had a second hand 1930s Ikonta and even with both my parents earning above average salaries film and developing was considered quite expensive. Before the advent of the mini lab, D&P was pretty expensive. We were lucky, living close to PTP which was the huge lab in Stevenage that did all the processing for Dixons and PhotoPost. But before the advent of the mini lab, that was still quite expensive. When dad taught me photography in the late 70s it was impressed on me how much film and processing cost, and not to waste a shot. The mini lab reduced costs and increased workflow. But they didn't really come into the market much until the mid 80s. At that point, the total point of shooting a roll of film probably halved. And more processing labs started offering "free film with D&P" or discount film. Suddenly you could get film plus D&P for the cost of going to a camera shop and picking up a roll of film from them. It genuinely was cheap then. But the pervading way to use film was still to shoot a handful of rolls per year because most people weren't enthusiasts and.....weren't actually very good at it.
The way we take photographs has radically changed. The mini lab, with it's faster workflow (no longer had to wait 24-72 hours for D&P), it's cheaper running costs, simpler operation and later automated/digital printing made the whole phenomenon of "wasting film" possible in ways it simply wasn't unless one shot B&W and processed by hand. And then digital cameras and the camera phone...suddenly we could literally take photos *everywhere* and everywhen. How many people took cameras clubbing in the 90s or before? I remember shooting small to medium gigs in the 90s and being one of two or three in an audience of hundreds with any sort of camera....and the only one who's camera wasn't flashing. Now pretty much everyone is using a phone to photograph, record or video gigs. To anyone who has forgotten those times or who is too young to remember them...the idea that you had 12 photos and had to be careful because they cost a lot compared to your or your parents' weekly wages....is something totally alien.
Well, you know, for all the talk of the good/not so good old days, and the expense of camera gear, films and paper in the 1960s, we did manage to take some truly memorable images. And I dare say many of us are still doing it.
Me, for example. As I type these lines on my laptop, I'm looking at a 5x8" black-and-white photo of my cousin Ernest, dating to 1962 when he was 19, during the spring maple syrup making season in eastern Canada. I took it on Verichrome Pan (costing me CDN$0.50 a roll) with a Yashica D I paid about CDN$40.00 for. All this was big money to me at that time, I was 14 and earning a little money with part-time work as a local correspondent for two newspapers, also shooting an occasional wedding and doing baby portraits (both of which I disliked doing in those days but I needed the money for my school study and my hobby). I remember making the print on Kodabromide F paper in my home darkroom. My enlarger at that time was a Burke & James studio model I remember paying about CDN$50.00 for - it came with an odd f/7.7 lens that wasn't the sharpest, but I still managed to make prints good enough for two newspapers to scan and publish, so it did what it had to do adequately well. I don't really remember how much I paid for the Kodabromide, although I do have a vague memory of buying the early Polycontrast paper a few years later at CDN$15.00 for a box of 100 8x10", but this may be incorrect. Old memories tend to fade as time passes.
As a quick aside, I also photographed Ernie's wedding in 1967. I took two rolls of GAF Versapan and printed all the newlyweds' thank-you photo cards for them, as my gift to them. By then I had a Rolleiflex 3.5E2 I bought new for CDN$195.00, a bargain even in those everything-was-so-cheap days. I still have that camera, also those negatives.
I have no idea how much all those amounts of money calculate to in 2021. Nor do I care much. I do remember I worked hard for my money, and (then as now) I was always careful how I spent it.
On the same day in 1962 I also took photographs of my grandfather, the maple syrup maker in the family. He was 68 at the time and he passed away in 1993, six weeks short of his 100th birthday.
Ernie died last week, at age 77. I plan to dig out the negative next week and make a few prints to send to the family.
So much time has passed. Most of us can probably relate similar stories, if we think back to those past times.
Amazing how that photo has lasted so long. It's worth a lot more to us (me and the family) than the calculations of how much what I paid back and how much that money is worth now.
Me, for example. As I type these lines on my laptop, I'm looking at a 5x8" black-and-white photo of my cousin Ernest, dating to 1962 when he was 19, during the spring maple syrup making season in eastern Canada. I took it on Verichrome Pan (costing me CDN$0.50 a roll) with a Yashica D I paid about CDN$40.00 for. All this was big money to me at that time, I was 14 and earning a little money with part-time work as a local correspondent for two newspapers, also shooting an occasional wedding and doing baby portraits (both of which I disliked doing in those days but I needed the money for my school study and my hobby). I remember making the print on Kodabromide F paper in my home darkroom. My enlarger at that time was a Burke & James studio model I remember paying about CDN$50.00 for - it came with an odd f/7.7 lens that wasn't the sharpest, but I still managed to make prints good enough for two newspapers to scan and publish, so it did what it had to do adequately well. I don't really remember how much I paid for the Kodabromide, although I do have a vague memory of buying the early Polycontrast paper a few years later at CDN$15.00 for a box of 100 8x10", but this may be incorrect. Old memories tend to fade as time passes.
As a quick aside, I also photographed Ernie's wedding in 1967. I took two rolls of GAF Versapan and printed all the newlyweds' thank-you photo cards for them, as my gift to them. By then I had a Rolleiflex 3.5E2 I bought new for CDN$195.00, a bargain even in those everything-was-so-cheap days. I still have that camera, also those negatives.
I have no idea how much all those amounts of money calculate to in 2021. Nor do I care much. I do remember I worked hard for my money, and (then as now) I was always careful how I spent it.
On the same day in 1962 I also took photographs of my grandfather, the maple syrup maker in the family. He was 68 at the time and he passed away in 1993, six weeks short of his 100th birthday.
Ernie died last week, at age 77. I plan to dig out the negative next week and make a few prints to send to the family.
So much time has passed. Most of us can probably relate similar stories, if we think back to those past times.
Amazing how that photo has lasted so long. It's worth a lot more to us (me and the family) than the calculations of how much what I paid back and how much that money is worth now.
MattKing
Moderator
I think Nicholas and I were responding to a different part of what you posted - the "hardly any" part.
My recollections are certainly affected by my time working in retail photography departments/stores. In the late 1970s and early in the 1980s we had significant numbers of customers who would bring in one or more rolls of film for processing (and frequently prints) on a regular basis. We sold a lot of film, to a lot of different customers.
And relatively speaking, that film and processing was inexpensive, and the processing was quick.
I totally agree that in current times many people are taking huge numbers of almost disposable cel phone photos. And if you are only speaking comparatively, then yes it is completely different now.
But I would suggest that around 1981 there was a lot of photography being done by a lot of people - just not as much as now.
MattKing
Moderator
My condolences.
Isn't that a bit like saying there are a lot of monkeys in the general population when you work at a zoo?
My experience of the late 70s to the late 80s was just being around different people, almost none of which were taking pictures very often (most not at all). In high school, I was the only person I knew who took photos - albeit on 110 film. I thought I took a lot of pictures. I took about 5 rolls worth over 4 years.
MattKing
Moderator
I was also going to university too (for much of the time). There were lots of cameras around.
And my workplaces were surrounded by a lot of other workplaces, while my customers were people who were of a wide range of backgrounds and occupations.
And of course my father was running the pickup and delivery dealer system for the North Vancouver Kodak lab, as well as dealing with coordinating with Canada Post in respect to the thousands of mailed Kodachrome and Ektachrome rolls sent weekly into the lab.
So it was a very busy and well populated zoo.
My father made very good money, at the time we had a Kodak 35mm camera, I think it was automat which made it easy for my mother to use and top of the line Polaroid. They took a the most 2 or 3 rolls of films a year and a couple of packs for the Polaroid Our high school taught photography as an elective and we had a darkroom used by the year book students and a couple of 35mm and a TLR, still had a very limited film budget. One of the advantages of the Polaroid was it took the positive negative film, I talked my dad into buying a pack, had to clear the negative, it enlarged rather well. When I got my own 35mm I found the best price for film at Kmart, rebranded GAF, $1.09 for 36ex of ASA 100. Don't know why I recall recall the $1.09.
There were very few cameras around when I was in university. Some people had them, but they didn't carry them around and use them regularly.
So in real terms you are saying that your real income has risen 20 times since 1981 i.e. you are now able to buy the same basket of good and services that you bought in 1981 20 times over? That's amazing but does this represent what Mr average can buy now compared to what he bought in 1981?
Is Mr average really 20 times better off now that he was in 1981?
I can't say that I feel 20 times better off than I did in 1981
pentaxuser
Mr Average now carries much more debt than in 1981. So, being able to use a credit card to buy groceries or a car (you could not do those things even 20 years ago) - is that better off?
Taxes and inflation have reduced the purchasing power of many today compared to yesterday. Years ago, one parent had to work in many cases. Today, it's often both.
MattKing
Moderator
No, he is saying that his hourly rate or pay-cheque is twenty times greater.
MattKing
Moderator
He may now be making have been making successful career and near retirement wages now, while in 1981 his wages might have been the sort one would make at a part time job while going to school..
Say $60.00 now, vs $3.00 then.
Say $60.00 now, vs $3.00 then.
Just guessing................i would say that "The Average Family" of today takes MORE Pictures in a year than the "Average Family" of days gone by took in 20 years
I bought a car on a credit card in 1998....
However, back to photography. I went to secondary school in the 1980s. I went to a private school where some of my friends were the offspring of very rich A-listers. There was a dark room and a photography club run by a very enthusiastic teacher who would also buy Tri-X and FP4 in bulk, and sell the hand rolled cassettes at cost price to pupils. Even then, with some *very* rich kids around, and nobody was wasting film. Sure, we shot more than the average person but we were enthusiasts and for some money was literally no object when Dad's biggest decision when turning up to parent's evening was whether to bring the Rolls or the Ferrari....The school had some Pentax SLR's to loan out because even kids who's parents were sufficiently well off to send them to an expensive school weren't buying them expensive cameras. I was unique in actually owning an SLR, albeit a Praktica MTL5 purchased tax free in the Channel islands which was the only way my parents could afford one. I recall going on a school trip to Germany and taking a compact 35mm and a super 8 cine camera and was thought to be quite mad for doing so. Mind you, everyone including the staff is now extremely grateful for the memories.
Point is....photography was not a cheap hobby even in the mid to late 80s. It has never been cheap.
However, back to photography. I went to secondary school in the 1980s. I went to a private school where some of my friends were the offspring of very rich A-listers. There was a dark room and a photography club run by a very enthusiastic teacher who would also buy Tri-X and FP4 in bulk, and sell the hand rolled cassettes at cost price to pupils. Even then, with some *very* rich kids around, and nobody was wasting film. Sure, we shot more than the average person but we were enthusiasts and for some money was literally no object when Dad's biggest decision when turning up to parent's evening was whether to bring the Rolls or the Ferrari....The school had some Pentax SLR's to loan out because even kids who's parents were sufficiently well off to send them to an expensive school weren't buying them expensive cameras. I was unique in actually owning an SLR, albeit a Praktica MTL5 purchased tax free in the Channel islands which was the only way my parents could afford one. I recall going on a school trip to Germany and taking a compact 35mm and a super 8 cine camera and was thought to be quite mad for doing so. Mind you, everyone including the staff is now extremely grateful for the memories.
Point is....photography was not a cheap hobby even in the mid to late 80s. It has never been cheap.
I recall going away on a vacation 25 years ago with a dozen rolls of 35mm film. Add up the cost of film, processing, and printing and a photo album with a few separate shots put in 5x7 frames, and it was a couple of hundred dollars when a dollar was worth something.
Thanks Matt but Don didn't really respond with that kind of an explanation that you have given but, yes, his pay-cheque may well be 20 times what it was 40 years ago but for the purpose of what the thread centres around it is purchasing power that counts.
In the great inflation of the Weimar Republic in the 20s some people's wages were 20 times what they were the previous month
pentaxuser
20 times nothing is still nothing...
If we're going to drift into analogies, let's try to relate them to photo topics or closely related to.
Now to digress from that. In 1965 when I went into my first job (as a cadet reporter on a fifth-rate daily newspaper in New Brunswick, Canada) I was paid an unprincely CDN$35.00 a week for up to 60 hours (no overtime) of slave-driven writing, rewriting, editing, pasting up and the other technical work to put out 11 editions of two papers every week. At Christmas the married employees got a turkey and 'singles' $5.00 (I asked for the turkey instead but was told to go jump.)
I lived at home and gave my parents $10.00 a week in pittance rent, paid 50 cents a gallon for gas and drove a 1960 Peugeot 403 I'd bought for $500.00, forget car insurance. Back then food wasn't wildly gourmet fare in New Brunswick, but takeaway coffee was 15 cents, hamburgers 25 cents each, and a (lousy) lunch of a hot chicken, beef or pork sandwich doused in brown gravy and served with chips cooked in sump oil and canned peas cost all of 70 cents. I earned an extra $20.00 a week for writing a 15-minute radio program on local events, now and then sold a feature article to other publications for fees of $10 to $25, and shot an occasional wedding for $50.00 out of which I had to pay for film, processing and sample prints. If I sold a wedding album I made an extra $50.00 which went a long way even after paying for 12 8x10" enlargements. Film, paper and darkroom chemistry costs were all low but still made a significant impact on my money.
A year later I bought a Rolleiflex 3.5E2 for $195.00 and put my Yashica D TLR, a $40.00 purchase in 1961, on the shelf.
That year (1966) I made my first overseas trip from Canada to Bermuda, for a week. I've forgotten how much the airfare was (not high in 1966 dollars). I had $300.00 saved up and on returning home I had cash left, but in those halcyon times I hadn't discovered alcohol yet and I didn't do drugs, so.
If I calculate all these amounts into 2021 dollars, chances are good that I couldn't have afforded any of it, but I had it, woo hoo!!
More to the point, I was 56 years younger and almost everything cost very little, but I wasn't living a great life. We didn't have drugs or a lot of alcohol back then but let me tell you being 18 in 1965 wasn't an easy street, especially in a culturally backward hole in Canada where churches still ruled everything and employers were closet Nazis. Now retired, I live a far better life on two average pensions and find I can afford all the things I need (my wants are reasonably modest) if I don't overindulge in $15.00 rolls of 120 film, $150+ bulk film for my Nikkormats and $4000+ digital Nikon kits.
Now in my retirement I drink good Australian wine at $10.00 a bottle and sometimes acceptable French and Italian vintages for less. In 1965 most wine in Canada was paint thinner and sure, spirits cost $6.00 for a quart but I can afford my wines far more than I did my gin or rum then.
I must have used several million rolls of film and sheets of enlarging paper in but now scanning and digital photography have liberated me from the tyranny of the darkroom. In that sense, I'm a zillion times far better off than I was 30 years ago and it means a lot to me.
In almost every way I'm much better off than I was then, even if I do wish I wasn't 74 years old.
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Yes, something like that.
Actually, that all sounded pretty great.
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