Click...click....*
Nikon, a company that produced the FM3A, is begining to phase out it's line of 35mm SLR(sinlge lens reflex) cameras. Following suit, Kodak announced it would stop selling 35mm cameras in the U.S. and Europe. A great transition is upon us, those of us that have grown up with film canistors and D-76 will witness a change to digital files and flat screens. It is exciting to see the change come, as artists, we have constantly experienced fluctuations in our mediums- at one point we marked on cave walls with charred wood, now we have the ability to plot points on computer monitors, as painters, we once ground pigments, creating our own labor intensive oils, now we simply head down to the local art store and pick up a tube of paint...the list could go on and on.
Photography, is a global market, from artists to scientists, from soccer moms to crime scenes- and therefor its production bends to the force of a global market. Change is eminent.
The same way that I search for old Kodak Brownies in flea markets, the next generation may look for FM3A's. Film, will be tricky as well. Now, because film is still produced, we can modify older cameras to accept a variety of film mediums- rolling 35mm through 120 spools, cutting and sliding sheet film into the backs of cameras whose spools are no longer made, can no longer be found; all this because film is still produced. What happens when film is no longer produced? Will those of that desire it, trace the steps of our photographic forefathers and learn to sensitize our own plates, produce our own sprocketed, sensitized gelatin rolls of HP5?
When photography first made it's appearance, two camps were formed. Those that embraced the new 'technology' and those that feared it. Some would go so far as to claim it was the end of painting...when in fact, it became inspiration for new thought in painting.
With digital media on the rise, we hear those familiar cries again-that film is dead. Change is eminent, embrace it...learn from it...and think of it not as the passing of one media into the history books but the intergration of a new media into your creative process.
Only those things that we let go of, leave us.
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P.S.- now that we enter into the digital world, beware of problems such as this. Defective Chip Found in Digital Cameras
very interesting, not sure how to think about this
it seems a little sad to me! it's kind of scary and exciting. i hope we never get rid of the photographer!!