I don't quite understand the point of these threads. I think everyone pretty much understands the dire situation with regards to traditional materials. There is nothing any of us can do about it. The choices are pretty obvious. You either buy a large supply of film and paper and freeze it or you continue to use materials as always and when the day comes they are no longer available you move onto something else. I can't afford to buy a lifetime supply of materials so I buy film and paper as I use it and when the day comes it is either no longer available or to expensive for my budget I will learn collodion so I can still use my 8x10 and 11x14 cameras (lest they become very expensive door stops) and get a nice DSLR and Epson printer.
For me the possible or probable demise of analogue photography is not worth losing sleep over anymore. I still think film and paper will be available from someone, somewhere for a long time. The questions will be, can I afford such a specialty product, and will it have the quality I am used to?
A good post and certainly a reasonable viewpoint.
The present concerns surrounding the continued availability of analog photographic materials should not be ignored by those presently using DSLRs and inkjet printers. Or those that may turn to them in the future.
It has been opined by some and with increasing volume of late (e.g. Dirck Halstead) that dedicated still photography is going to be extinct in a couple decades as it is simply ridden over roughshod by larger trends in the convergence of consumer electronics. I can remember an article in a British photographic magazine about two years that queried product planners from Canon, Olympus, Sony, and Nikon where the digital imaging market was going and - with the exception of the Nikon rep - they left me with the impression that pictorial photography would be recuced to the harvest of single images from video cameras in the not-so-distant future. And all agreed that the reflection print was just about dead in their estimation.
We all think of Pentax, Canon, Fuji, Olympus, and Nikon as camera manufacturers but Canon's largest business is office equipment (e.g. copiers), Fuji still makes the lion share of its profits off television production equipment, Olympus' core business has as much to do with microscopy and scientific instruments as photography, and Pentax is, increasingly, a manufacturer of medical imaging diagnostic equipment.
Yes, I know that people have been predicting the demise of still, pictorial photography since the advent of afforeable video recorders in the late 70s. This time, though, the threat is different.
So, increasingly, the threat I perceive posed by digital is something larger than just the substitution of the memory card for film. It seems to have evolved into an assualt on all parts of what I perceive as the photographic process from visualization, to output, to presentation.
I'm not sure anybody saw that coming. Let's hope for a backlash!
So please don't go this route any time soon!
