sgt hop Loc: baltimore md,now in salisbury md

this thing is starting to sound like the attic....banning film????does film hurt someone that much that it should be banned????? i dunnno...film never bothered me, and i used quite a bit of it....spent a lot of times in my darkrooms and never became ill....when it became time for me to give up my darkroom, couldn't afford the supplies anymore, and took up digital, i donated my darkroom to a baltimore high school....a friend was a teacher and he wanted to give photo lessons to the kids that were interested.....i'm 87 now and had played with photography from about 13 on....never made a nickle outta it, but really enjoyed it...i have a bunch of cameras i have collected over the years that i'm gonna have to unload....none of my kids have any interest in photography...anyway, i don't wanna ban film....

jack schade Loc: La Pine Oregon

I also spent many years shooting film. I don't think I will ever go back to it. I do still have my Canon F1 with 3 lenses.

jack

dennis2146 Loc: Eastern Idaho

I would have to say, the comment, no advantage to film, depends on who you are and your wants in the world of photography. I enjoy taking film photographs with older cameras. Maybe your comment should be, I see no advantage to film.

Dennis

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

The primary purpose of school and other ‘group’ pictures always seemed to me to be a means of ‘pro’ photographers to reach markets they would otherwise never reach. Digital allows them to get to the customer faster - allowing the salesman to touch the customer immediately after the picture is taken.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Digressionary rant:

Head and shoulders school portraits and group portraits served multiple purposes. The photographer, lab, and school were in a symbiotic sort of relationship:

> The lab needed film to process and print.

> The photographer needed access to parents to sell portraits.

> The school needed all sorts of "service" items (ID cards, rotary file card prints or digital images for a student information system, sticker prints for teachers' file folders, portrait prints or digital images for the yearbook, team pictures for the football program and yearbook...

> Then there was the school fundraising aspect. Usually, a portion of the price of a school portrait package (i.e.; a commission on the sale) went to the school to pay for extras that were not included in the school budget, such as funding PTA or PTSA projects, buying new books for the library, painting lines in the parking lot, or paying for teachers' supplies.

The school portrait market dates back 100 years or more. Eventually, by the post-WWII years, large companies evolved to serve nearly all the schools in the Western world.

I worked for three of those. The first of them had about $20 million in photo finishing sales annually in 1979 when I joined. We bought mile-long rolls of 40-inch paper that lined the halls in early Fall. We mixed chemicals in 1100-gallon drums. We built our own printing machines that cost about $120,000 each in the late 1970s. Cameras used 100' rolls of 35mm, 46mm, or 70mm wide, unperforated film. Ciné type film processors ran C41 continuously, six days a week in the Fall.

We had 100 independent dealers across the USA and Puerto Rico, and at one point, at least one dealer in every state.

After 50 years in business, in 1996, Delmar was purchased by a school market conglomerate, Herff Jones. Their Photography Division had a different but similar business model that included some 60 retail territories of photographers and some 1000 independent local studios who were all a lot smaller than the dealer operations we had. Some of those folks did a little school portrait work, but that volume was tiny compared to the dealers we brought to the table. The good news was that we were an ESOP.

Ultimately, our division was sold to Lifetouch 15 years later. We ex-HJ employees transitioned our ESOP shares three years later (Whew!).

LT struggled, and was sold to Shutterfly in 2018. They've been laying off people left and right, since, as the market shrinks. Once a proud ESOP, Lifetouch is no longer employee-owned. Employees got hosed in the merger as the stock price sank when senior managers sold their shares.

Such is the sad tale of woe in the school portrait business. Bits beat atoms, folks!

stanikon Loc: Deep in the Heart of Texas

Don't you ever get curious about something just for the sake of being curious about it? I'm curious about many things that do not, will not ever and have never affected me in any way.

stanikon Loc: Deep in the Heart of Texas

Why?

BebuLamar

Thanks for responding. But the OP didn't care to just to say so. I feel the OP has the reason beyond curious.

stanikon Loc: Deep in the Heart of Texas

But your response seems to indicate that he/she should not be asking if it has no affect on him/her. You may feel that the OP has an unstated motive but it's exactly that: your own feeling. You are interpreting something that isn't stated.

tybeejim Loc: Tybee Island, GA

I think it’s just somewhat of a “thing” to be different. I once owned a Leica M6 when it was new and digital didn’t exist, ca 1998. Loved that camera and would like to have it back. Kind of like you wish you could get a Porsche GT3 with a manual transmission. But my first real digital camera, a Canon 5D Mk II still produces great photos for my hobby. I added a Sony A7C with a bunch of G Master lenses that is still less expensive than a new M6 body! There will always be a niche for film for those who enjoy it. But it’s day has past. Digital is for now and the near future until quantum computing comes up with something else.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

tybeejim Loc: Tybee Island, GA

If one has never used film (and I’m sure there are many) then curiosity might entertain them but at some expense. It’s not that there is no value to the old media, but today's requirement for speed brought on by the nature of social media, not art, makes film obsolete.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Yup.

BebuLamar

That is why I asked. Is he just curious or some other reasons he asked? It seems I have no right to ask.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Rules are for the other members.