Refreshing news for silver enthusiast

[Klainmeister]

I know there's been a lot of death of film threads recently and thought it was apt that today, while searching out the last few boxes of Velvia and Acros at my local camera shop, I pleasantly noticed a major influx in chemistry and papers--I inquired the owner about the sudden inventory and he said that he's noticed an upswing in his darkroom sales. Way more than he was expecting. This place, about 6 months ago, was fairly abysmal for film supplies and darkroom equipment, but now: sheesh!

I'm pretty excited about it, especially since the other store in town told me they didn't care to carry 120 anymore, and especially the two I love. Lost my business. But this fellow was ecstatic over it and was looking forward to seeing more darkroom addicts coming out of the woodworks. Hey, they even sold the Hasselblad Xpan I was eying for a few months!

So hey, even if we lose Rochester and some other places don't have the means or local support to continue, at least we know here in SFe there is a new generation of shooters keeping this guy busy.

 

[tomalophicon]

Good news.
Now where's CGW?

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

Great post!

Ken

 

[wotalegend]

I noticed in one of our metropolitan dailies today that one of the larger bricks & mortar photo retailers in town actually devoted a section of their ad to announcing that they have an extensive range of film and do their own on-site processing including E6 and B&W. There's life in the old dog yet.

 

[CGW]

It's gotta happen. The old retail landscape is slipping away as "full service"(sic)camera stores shed their ties to analog. It frustrates the bejeesus out of me to hear retail staff claim interest is zilch when people still ask about film/paper/chemistry the store once carried--hello!? I'd love to have a shop in Toronto that catered to film shooters combined with rental darkrooms. Works in NYC. Something will emerge from the smoking ruin we're standing in now.

 

[Ian Grant]

I was told this was happening here in the UK last year while buying a tripod and we were talking about it again in the same shop last month.

However the whole retail market is changing, my local retail store Jessops is a branch of the UK's over dominant chain and their stock of films etc is poor they do carry a small supply of darkroom materials but that'll change again, they don't even cary decent inkjet papers either. The branch in the nearby city is 100% Digital and more like an electrical store, luckily theres two other more conventional store there as well.

It's the online suppliers who are becoming our source for materials.

Ian

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

It frustrates the bejeesus out of me to hear retail staff claim interest is zilch when people still ask about film/paper/chemistry the store once carried--hello!? I'd love to have a shop in Toronto that catered to film shooters combined with rental darkrooms.

I think your data may be trying to tell you something...



Ken

 

[CGW]

I think your data may be trying to tell you something...



Ken

???

 

[Ken Nadvornick]

???

"I'd love to have a shop in Toronto that catered to film shooters combined with rental darkrooms."



Ken

 

[Diapositivo]

I was in Paris recently, and I met some friends of my sister, one of them, I found out, is married to a professional photographer. We exchanged some short photographic chit-chat, and I told him that, although I only brought my digital camera to Paris, I do at least half of my photography with analogue materials. He told me that his wife works also with analogue photography too, and that she is noticing a resurgence of film requests, clients increasingly expressly ask her for analogue material. Her work is mainly digital, but analogue still has a niche, and that niche is growing.

I take this as another indication that analogue photography touched bottom and is now slowly bouncing. It would be very sad if Kodak exited the scene now, but there's a life beyond Kodak anyway.

Fabrizio

 

[Jeff Kubach]

Great news.

Jeff

 

[semi-ambivalent]

Lots of analog cameras on necks at the Grand Canyon two weeks ago. So says my vacationing boss. The wet side is the stumbling block; film developing can be done almost anywhere on the cheap and doesn't use near the water I was told to use twenty years ago. But the printing...

s-a

 

[wblynch]

... But the printing...

Well most film photographs are finished with "electronic enlargers" and printers now. Fewer test prints and mistakes greatly reduces resource usage.

Certainly the results from electronic enlarging are not as beautiful as traditional optical enlarging but that is the reality of today.