Some would say that addressing the topic of analog flim is pointless at this juncture, but unless I am mistaken, I have been reading for years that film has been dead or obsolete for the past 10 years. In April, sports blog Deadspin posted 10 years of news clippings and articles that reported the demise of recently injured Yankees closer Mariano Rivera. It was a comical to see all the news clippings starting all the way back in 2002 that said Rivera was too old or washed up. If you even mildly follow baseball, you know that Rivera has flourished as one of the best pitchers in the game since then. So what about film, is it too old? It would be a fun post in the future to find small clippings, articles, and posts about the death and/or obsolescence of film over the past decade or so. Here is an update on where things stand and what is going to happen next.
Preface
Commercially film is about as dead as you can get. It is common knowledge that large format film produces a higher resolution image than a DSLR, but people just couldn't be bothered anymore. Back in 2008, when I was still in school, we were being given free 8x10 and 4x5 cameras from local/NYC commercial photography studios. Really these studios couldn't get rid of the ancient bellowed warlords fast enough. At the time I thought, "Wow look at all this amazing free stuff!" But it didn't take long for me to realize the writing was on the wall. All of the interesting things I learned in school about different films, printing papers, printing techniques, and chemicals would mean jack shit in a few years. There are a few people hanging on. When I was on my road trip last fall, I ran into two photographers shooting a wedding in Chattanooga, TN with a Canon EOS-1v, a Pentax 6x7, and a Fuji Instax 210 camera. Wow, good for them and I really mean that, I am envious. Still let's put this issue to rest, the dead horse has been beaten for far too long over the years, film is dead commercially. However that doesn't mean film is obsolete, useless, or "not as good" as digital as many people have claimed.
The Painful Truth... Money Talks
There is still a community of people who enjoy using film, but the sad reality is that film isn't cheap or easy to make. The commercial demand is what allowed Fuji, Kodak, Ilford, and others to pump out tons of film like it was no one's business. Just like anything else, when there isn't demand for something, people are going to stop making it. Let's be real for a second, none of these companies are charities that are going to just keep producing something on a massive scale that isn't going to make them any money. In fact it has gotten to the point where Kodak LOST money from making and selling film last year. That's never a good sign. Despite all this, there does seem to be a slight resurgence in the popularity of film amongst young people, also known as hipsters. Many senior citizens can't be bothered by new fangled technology, meaning they too have continued to keep running wonderful coated acetate through their cameras. Ah to be young... or old.
Hi-Ho Silver!!!
So by slight resurgence I mean, nope, the sky is still falling. It is hard to fathom the scale at which film was manufactured in the golden age, but think massive. I'm not an expert on how film is made, but as I understand it much of the machinery used in the process was designed to produce enormous batches of film, not just a few rolls/sheets here and there. The crash in demand for film caused manufacturers to abandon entire plants/factories all together as the machinery couldn't simply be used to make less of it. Increased production costs and lower demand are never a recipe for success. This is especially true with color films. I fully expect Kodak, Fuji, and Ilford to continue making black and white films for a very long time. The entire process is relatively basic compared to coating color emulsions. The same is true about the chemicals required to develop black and white film. So if you are an analog monochrome diehard, you don't need to start dedicating entire meat freezers to Tri-X... yet. Remember developing film is a chemical process based on light sensitive silver. In 2000 an ounce of silver cost around $5. Fast-forward twelve years and we're looking at $27-30 for an ounce of silver. I'm not sure how much this has impacted the production cost of film. Maybe it was simply like throwing a match at a building that was already burning to the ground. However, we can be sure that it hasn't helped.
The End?
Over the past several years variety in film stock has plummeted as a result. Think Myspace. Films that are discontinued are never coming back, which sucks (unlike myspace going away, we can live with that). Right now we still have plenty of film left in stock here and it isn't all going to disappear tomorrow, but you would be shocked how quickly stock depletes when we get the sad news that another film has been discontinued. So where does this leave us now? Well no one can be exactly sure if films will continue to be discontinued and fade away their current pace. I believe things will stabilize for a short period of time and right now you could argue that they already have to a degree, but one day we are going to live in a world with no color film. It wouldn't be shocking if this happened in about 10 years, maybe less. By then the hipster kids will have "grown up" and many of the older generation will have passed on. Many of the younger people getting involved with photography over the next several years will have little to no exposure to film, so demand is not going to increase. It makes me really sad to think about, but I really can't see it turning out any other way.
Some Semblance of Monochrome Comfort
As I mentioned before, black and white film and chemistry has not been impacted nearly as much. Again the stuff is relatively cheap to make and I've even read tales of a guy who used to work for Kodak coating his own film in his garage with old discarded machines. If you truly love black and white film you really have no reason to fret, I fully believe that the traditional analog process of exposing, developing, and printing of black and white images will be around for a very long time. Some schools are already considering making it an "alternative processes" course in their Art programs. Many old photographic imaging processes have survived the test of time, but sadly color film photography near the edge of being gone forever.
The "Good" News
Again, we still have a nice variety of color films in every format from 35mm through 8x10. It is still here, so buy it and use it while you can. Even if you aren't scanning or printing right away, just get the darn stuff exposed and developed so you have the negatives for future use. Instead of wasting your time lamenting the loss of something great like I am, you should be out snapping away. Writing this has inspired me to want to make some images on my film cameras. On that train of thought, right now REALLY NICE film cameras are a bargain. It makes so much sense to pick up a used Hasselblad or Mamiya system from KEH or eBay. As digital medium format technology becomes more affordable over the next decade, you will eventually be able to put a digital back on a modular system for about the same price as a high-end DSLR costs today. Again, the purists out there are probably cringing over this suggestion, but it is a reality. After all it was Ansel Adams, a true master of analog photography, who said
I eagerly await new concepts and processes. I believe that the electronic image will be the next major advance. Such systems will have their own inherent and inescapable structural characteristics, and the artist and functional practitioner will again strive to comprehend and control them. (The Negative, 1981)