Are Prints becoming an Endangered Species?

I remember way back, when I was a freshman in college, MTV debuted, and college students across the world skipped classes all day long. There are hundreds of thousands of us who watched “Video Killed the Radio Star” aired as the first video. Like a slap in the music industry’s face, there it was. We all knew, eyes locked on this new medium, that we were watching music change in a major way.

Too bad we didn’t get the warning with digital photography. Poor film, it has been gradually kicked to the curb and momma did take our Kodachrome away. And now the demise of the print has crept up and made itself known…

This past weekend I participated in an image competition. They used to be called “print competitions,” but with the changed rules allowing digital entries, we now call them “image competitions.”

Anyway.

I found myself involved in several mind-bending and -blowing conversations with a highly knowledgeable individual in the industry, and during the course of our conversations, he said that he felt the digital competition changed competition, that print-making used to be a vital part of the photographic process, and now, digital competition has excluded that very important step. {paraphrased}

Wow.

Oh. Em. Gee.

And then I came home and ran that concept by Mr. Wootness.

And he expanded by saying that digital has not only affected competition and the photographic process, it has affected what photographers will actually commit to digital memory. Things that twenty years ago, they never would have committed to film, let alone pay to get processed.

Again. Wow.

So now I am thinking. And rethinking.

I’ve decided to return to prints for competition entries. The dude is correct. That theory is “right” in my photography world view. Committing my work to paper *IS* a vital step in the process. And I intend to do it with the same level of excellence I apply to the image capture and retouching process.

Prints shall also play a bigger role in my studio gallery line. I already offer a wall print with every package, but a new art line will soon make an appearance. Digital file availability will be less prominent, and, in fact, may disappear altogether.

And finally, prints will also play a larger role in my personal life. I can’t even remember the last time I committed a personal image to paper. That’s also going to change. My children are doomed to sift through decades of photographs upon my demise. Sorry kids!

I’ve watched labs go under, reduce staff, reduce offerings and just plain old lower prices across the board. It’s happening. First it happened to photographers and now it’s happening to labs. The last step in the demise of photography would be for the print to die. I don’t think we can fight the digital file issue, but for crying out loud, let’s not let the print die.

PS. Thanks, Jim.