The Fading Out of Photographic Film



A graphic of film sales
over the past ~15 yrs

 A story published today by the AP about the decreasing use of photographic film in general and film-based still imagery in particular had a nice graph from industry sources.   Here it is.  As with many tech related things the delay until the drop-off is hard to predict. But when it comes it's fast and furious.  In this case the peak occurred around 2000 at  800 M$ and is now maybe 20 M$ - a factor of close to 100.  In annual terms, that's about  60% per year.  

Large format film still beats semiconductor pixel based sensing for beauty and subtlety.  However, it's expensive and requires a lot of skill use the film medium effectively.  Digital post-processing of film captured images is, of course, a loss of purity but is in-effect used when these films are printed on large format digital printers using laser scanning and laser-based paper exposure.  The film is scanned, digitized and then laser printed onto fancy color paper.  For black and white,  a clean traditional "analog" print is still possible. But even for B/W there are benefits to HQ digital printing over dark-room methods.  Basically, darkroom skills are in short supply and photoshop software is very powerful. 

The Beaux Arts Trio

The original Beaux Arts Trio -    Piano: Menahem Pressler,  Violin: Daniel Guilet,  Cello: Bernard Greenhouse,   is 2/3 gone with the death, at 95,  of Bernard Greenhouse yesterday at his home at Wellfleet on Cape Cod.   A friend of his uploaded some videos of him practising recently.  I am embedding links to them here.  I don't know how long they will remain.  (From kathycello Bernard Greenhouse believed in practicing and playing cello every day. At age 95, he still practiced daily. This video was taken in his studio overlooking Wellfleet (MA) Harbor and his recently planted garden. He will be fondly remembered by all his students, colleagues and friends. -videos taken 5/4/11 by Kathy Schiano, cellist and friend.)