As a photographer who ditched film photography as soon as results of equal quality could be produced from a digital camera, other than still dabbling with medium-format black-and-white film photography, I have been fascinated by the increase in interest in film photography during recent years, particularly among the young who are attracted as much by the process as by the results. As such I have been looking at various websites over the years, sometimes just for historical interest.
In the past months though I have noticed a decrease in activity and I now monitor three activities that, to me, seem to serve overall as an index of interest and potential interest in film photography. I feel a bit like the journalist who counted the number of skips in front of houses in his street to gauge the health of the building industry. I will not state here what I am counting but will keep reporting on my index in coming months, suffice it to say that on one measure interest is at 70-80% of what was what at the peak a couple of years ago and on another measure is about 90%.
